From May 8 to September 4, 2022, the Dreamers' Study Abroad program of the California-Mexico Studies Center (CMSC) will provide the opportunity to 190 young beneficiaries of Deferred Action (DACA) to carry out a one-month academic stay in Mexico.
Through the CMSC program, six groups of 30 dreamers each will visit Mexico for an educational and cultural trip. In addition, Dreamers' Study Abroad, has the travel authorization / advance parole of the Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), so that DACA recipients can leave and re-enter the United States without losing their benefits.
For the design of the educational and cultural program, the CMSC collaborates with the Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF) of Tijuana, Baja California and with the Paulo Freire International Center for Languages, Art and Culture (CILAC Freire), of Cuernavaca, Morelos.
The educational program consists of a series of talks on history, culture, language, as well as lectures on social movements in Mexico, and the educational, economic and political systems in Mexico. The stay also includes visits to museums and archaeological sites.
In addition to academic and cultural activities, one of the most important aspects of the program is that participants will have the opportunity to travel independently for 2 or 3 weeks to learn about their origins and their families. For this activity, the participants will carry out an ethnographic investigation of ten pages where they will tell about their experience and findings.
This year the eligibility requirements for the program were as follows:
- Be 21 years of age or older at the time of travel.
- Speak Spanish fluently.
- Have active DACA status with an expiration date after September 30, 2022.
- Have a valid passport from the respective country of origin.
- If the applicant is born in Mexico, he or she must commit to requesting and obtaining the Credential for Voting Abroad from the National Electoral Institute (INE) before traveling to Mexico. Click here to follow the instructions to request an INE Card.
- You must not have a criminal or immigration record.
- You must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and be able to show vaccination records.
- You must test negative for COVID-19, two days before departure to Mexico.
- Retesting negative for COVID-19 two days before arriving at the place of academic activities and one day before returning to the United States.
Additionally, the student must pay the $ 5,000 program fees and the USCIS advance parole travel fee of $ 575.
Learn more about this program in the following link and review information about the next calls: https://www.california-mexicocenter.org/
