San Diego State University has set aside a large chunk of money to pay for its students’ Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals application renewal fees.
Officials at the the public university allocated $130,000 to fund the renewal application fees, which run $495 apiece.
“This is a one time funding allocation not to exceed $130,000 and will be given to the SDSU Economic Crisis Response Team. This could fund up to 262 student DACA renewals which we are told by the University would be sufficient,” D. Hayden Willis, vice president of financial affairs at SDSU, wrote in a Sept. 25 memo to the Financial Affairs Committee.
The memo adds that the funds are “unclaimed property” and received “after the 2017-18 budget was approved and are currently unallocated.”
Economic Crisis Response Team is a group of administrators, students and faculty who work to ensure “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,” according to its website.
The effort was billed by the school’s student government as a way to continue to support San Diego State students. In a tweet, the group stated the effort aligns with their “mission, vision and values.”
The deadline to apply was Oct. 5, and officials promised confidentiality to applicants.
The Associated Students President Chimezie Ebiriekwe and the Undocumented Resource Area Coordinator Cynthia Torres did not to respond to The College Fix’s requests for comment.
The president of San Diego State, Sally Roush, has publicly expressed her support for the continuation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
“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 to President Trump in a public letter dated Sept. 3.
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