In selecting its next batch of recruits for the 2014-15 school year, Teach For America will seek out undocumented college graduates who meet the organization’s criteria to become teachers in some of the nation’s most challenged public schools.
Teach For America announced yesterday that it woud open up its recruitment efforts to include undocumented candidates who were brought to the United States as children by their parents. To be considered for TFA’s corps, students will have to have “deferred action” status, meaning they’ve sought, and received, temporary work authorization and relief from deportation from federal immigration officials. The Obama administration ordered the deferred action policy more than a year ago for undocumented youth who came to the U.S. before turning 16 and who meet certain education and military service requirements.
The beneficiaries of deferred action, widely known as DREAMers, must meet all the same eligibility requirements of other potential TFA candidates: A minimum 2.5 undergraduate GPA and a bachelor’s degree in hand by June.
TFA accepted into their 2013 corps three DREAMers who had received their deferred action status. As of the end of August, federal immigration authorities had approved more than 450,000 applications for deferred action, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.