With a focus on student safety and well-being, this guide is designed to provide general information and links to resources about anti-oppression and related topics such as diversity, inclusion, and social justice for the UNLV academic community. Intended to be non-partisan, many resources offered here are for everyone regardless of political affiliation or viewpoint. In some cases, resources and links related to issues and specific policies proposed by elected officials are part of this guide as these issues and proposed policies directly impact professional and personal lives of members of our community, such as immigrants or people of color.
We would like to offer our appreciation to the following individuals and other valued colleagues who contributed to the development of this guide.
Christine Clark, Professor, Teaching & Learning
Brittany Fiedler, Teaching & Learning Librarian
Mariana Sarmiento Hernández
Sue Wainscott, Engineering Librarian
This guide seeks to serve as a starting point and is not meant to be exhaustive. It is our goal to continue its development in response to evolving needs of the community. We welcome suggestions from all members of the UNLV academic community.
If you have feedback about this guide or would like to suggest additional resources, please contact Sue Wainscott, Engineering Librarian
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Immigration has been a topic of national conversation. Some of that conversation has been focused on undocumented immigrants in the United States and on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The status of DACA is uncertain at this time. Stay up-to-date about DACA: https://ww.nilc.org/issues/daca/ and https://immigrantsrising.org/start-here/beyond-daca/
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Renew DACA today at the Immigration Law Clinic.
July 2024 update- The UNLV Immigration Law Clinic also offers information for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens.
The UNLV Undocumented Student Program has helpful, up to date information and resources for UNLV students about DACA and other resources for undocumented students. This includes information about financial aid applications, scholarships, and health insurance eligibility.
February 2025 update- check out this list of resources updated by the UNLV Undocumented Student Program. "In an effort to address our campus’ need for information and resources the UNLV Undocumented Student Program has developed a LIVE document that will be updated frequently. The document contains information on upcoming events, resources (internal/external/national), protection information, and legal updates."
Below you will find a list of resources that might help Undocumented/DACAmented students and those individuals who want to find ways to support Undocumented/DACAmented students.
Undocumented/Documented college students and youth are also often referred to as DREAMers. Learn more about the DREAM Act: proposed legislation that would benefit them, on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DREAM_Act
Read this profile of Mariana Sarmiento, From Dreamer to Dream Come True
(Artwork by Anita Revilla, Quote added, Used with permission from the artist)
Undocumented by
A longtime immigration activist explores what it means to be an undocumented American in this "impassioned and well-reported case for change" (New York Times). In this illuminating work, immigrant rights activist Aviva Chomsky shows how "illegality" and "undocumentedness" are concepts that were created to exclude and exploit. With a focus on US policy, she probes how people, especially Mexican and Central Americans, have been assigned this status-and to what ends. Blending history with human drama, Chomsky explores what it means to be undocumented in a legal, social, economic, and historical context. The result is a powerful testament of the complex, contradictory, and ever-shifting nature of status in America.
Dear America by
THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER "This riveting, courageous memoir ought to be mandatory reading for every American." --Michelle Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The New Jim Crow "l cried reading this book, realizing more fully what my parents endured." --Amy Tan, New York Times bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and Where the Past Begins "This book couldn't be more timely and more necessary." --Dave Eggers, New York Times bestselling author of What Is the What and The Monk of Mokha Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, called "the most famous undocumented immigrant in America," tackles one of the defining issues of our time in this explosive and deeply personal call to arms. "This is not a book about the politics of immigration. This book--at its core--is not about immigration at all. This book is about homelessness, not in a traditional sense, but in the unsettled, unmoored psychological state that undocumented immigrants like myself find ourselves in. This book is about lying and being forced to lie to get by; about passing as an American and as a contributing citizen; about families, keeping them together, and having to make new ones when you can't. This book is about constantly hiding from the government and, in the process, hiding from ourselves. This book is about what it means to not have a home. After 25 years of living illegally in a country that does not consider me one of its own, this book is the closest thing I have to freedom." --Jose Antonio Vargas, from Dear America
Lives in Limbo by
"My world seems upside down. I have grown up but I feel like I'm moving backward. And I can't do anything about it." -Esperanza Over two million of the nation's eleven million undocumented immigrants have lived in the United States since childhood. Due to a broken immigration system, they grow up to uncertain futures. In Lives in Limbo, Roberto G. Gonzales introduces us to two groups: the college-goers, like Ricardo, who had good grades and a strong network of community support that propelled him to college and DREAM Act organizing but still landed in a factory job a few short years after graduation, and the early-exiters, like Gabriel, who failed to make meaningful connections in high school and started navigating dead-end jobs, immigration checkpoints, and a world narrowly circumscribed by legal limitations. This vivid ethnography explores why highly educated undocumented youth share similar work and life outcomes with their less-educated peers, despite the fact that higher education is touted as the path to integration and success in America. Mining the results of an extraordinary twelve-year study that followed 150 undocumented young adults in Los Angeles, Lives in Limbo exposes the failures of a system that integrates children into K-12 schools but ultimately denies them the rewards of their labor.
Patler, C. (2018). To reveal or conceal: How diverse undocumented youth navigate legal status disclosure. Sociological Perspectives. https://doi.org/10.1177/0731121418775092
Vaquera, E., Aranda, E., & Sousa-Rodriguez, I. (2017). Emotional challenges of undocumented young adults: Ontological security, emotional capital, and well-being. Social Problems, 64 (2), 298-314. (subscription access only - at this link is available to UNLV students and employees)
The term "sanctuary campus" is used in many contexts without a clear definition. Since 2017, several universities have declared their intent to be sanctuaries for immigrant students, and many others have also limited what data is collected about students' immigration status, and have clarified employee obligations to respond to inquiries and other actions by outside agencies. Below are examples of institutional policies and statements.