San Diego State University has allocated a large budget to pay for its students’ Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals renewal application fees.
Administrators at the publicly-funded university set aside $130,000 to fund the fees, which costs $495 per individual.
“This is a one time funding allocation not to exceed $130,000 and will be given to the SDSU Economic Crisis Response Team,” wrote D. Hayden Wills, VP of financial affairs at SDSU, in a memo to the Financial Affairs Committee in late September. “This could fund up to 262 student DACA renewals which we are told by the University would be sufficient.”
The memo added that the funds are considered “unclaimed property” at present, and received “after the 2017-2018 budget was approved and are currently unallocated.” News about the memo was disclosed by The College Fix on Thursday.
According to SDSU’s website, the Economic Crisis Response Team are a group made up of administrators, students and school faculty who make sure “students experiencing food or housing insecurity, or other immediate, unforeseen financial crises are connected with short-term and long-term aid quickly and without stigmatization.”
The school’s government spoke positively of the effort, stating that it aligned with the school’s “mission, vision, and values.”
The president of San Diego State, Sally Roush, expressed full support for the DACA program, and urged President Trump not to cancel it.
“As you consider your decision, we urge you to give the greatest weight to the fact that these individuals who arrived in this country too young to have made the decision to come here, or to have understood any consequent impact on their citizenship, have in fact excelled as students and as good citizens. We implore you to acknowledge these facts and urge you to retain the DACA program,” she wrote in an open letter in September.
Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken media critic. You can reach him through social media at @stillgray on Twitter and on Facebook.