PUENTES a policy program for migrant students returning to Mexico: a real opportunity or opportunistic rhetoric?

• In Event: Equity issues in Latin American higher education

Proposal

Student mobility is perhaps the most visible facet of the process of internationalization of higher education. Literature around the phenomenon of students traveling abroad is vast but historically it has focused more on the intentions and effects of mobility seen either as a way of enlightenment or to achieve upward mobility. More recently, a third type of mobility has been gaining attention in the literature: the mobility for survival of those who are forced to leave their countries and escape adverse social and political conditions locally. This type of mobility follows similar geographical patterns in which students tend to move from the Global South to the Global North. However, despite the fact that many of them seek and get legal asylum, they still get labeled as immigrants or refugees and are facing discrimination as a result of the rise in nationalistic anti-immigrant movements in some Western countries.

One such country where this is seen is in the United States (U.S.), where policies are being executed to stop the influx of migrants and to deport as many unauthorized immigrants as possible. It is estimated that there are over 12 million of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. (Baker, 2017), and over half were born in Mexico. However, contrary to other types of immigrants and refugees, many of these Mexican nationals, particularly the 20% of them under the age of 24, have been living in the United States for the vast majority of their lives. They are active members of the community and they have attended schools in the U.S. Some of these students are now facing an option of moving to a country which is not of their choosing, and more problematically, one that they are unfamiliar with (even though it represents their heritage). Through this study, we explore an option for Mexican-American higher education students to continue with their education if they are deported to Mexico or decide to leave the U.S. voluntarily either out of fear of being deported or because a parent has already been deported.

A Brief History of Mexico-US Migration
Mexico and the United States not only share territorial borders, but also many cultural affinities as a result of the flow of people who have moved across that border for centuries. Hispanic and Latinos are the largest ethnic or racial minority in the U.S., close to 60 million which represents around 18% of the entire population. Out of those, 63% are of Mexican origin (U.S. Census Bureau, 2017).

After the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the federal government rhetoric has been openly anti-immigrant and legislative action has been taken to stop the influx of immigrants and to stop programs such as the DREAM Act that has given some protections from deportation to unauthorized immigrants already living in the U.S. Under this program, known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (or DACA), protected students who qualify have the opportunity to enroll at a HEI –in some cases paying the reduced in-state tuition– and are also able to apply for a work permit. On 2017, a White House executive order rescinded (temporarily) the DACA program and urged the 689,821 individuals that held DACA status then (79% of which are Mexican; Pew Research Center, 2017) to “use the time remaining on their work authorizations to prepare for and arrange their departure from the United States” (DHS, 2017).

Fearing that suddenly a large number of Mexican students still enrolled at a HEI in the US could be forced to leave the country, several actors in Mexico swiftly organized to prepare a response. If the U.S. was ready to send back to Mexico a fraction of their best-prepared immigrants, Mexico was ready to receive them. However, it was not an easy task in a country like Mexico with a higher education system that is complex, stratified and capacity insufficient.

The PUENTES program
In a joint effort between the Mexican government and over four-hundred public and private HEI lead by the National Association of Universities and Higher Education Institutions (ANUIES), the National Emerging University Program for the Culmination of Tertiary Studies (or PUENTES for its meaning in Spanish) was established in March 2017 (ANUIES, 2017).

PUENTES was created as a temporary program (2017-2020) to facilitate enrolment of Mexican students living in the US at a Mexican HEI to finish their degrees. The government changed legislation that would expedite the transfer of credits and credential recognition from partial studies abroad. HEIs in Mexico would provide admission, scholarships and expedite paperwork to enroll the students allowing them to finish their degrees.
Our main purpose with this research is to analyze, from a policy perspective, how a country can prepare to serve –their once migrant citizens, now returning students who might need to be re-enrolled into the higher education system and therefore into the society. We conducted a qualitative study that involved interviews with key actors from the Government, the National Association of Universities, activists and non-profit organizations that focus on issues of education and immigration. We also sent a survey to all the HEIs who were participating in the program during the Spring of 2018 to collect their opinions and the program’s results at their institution.

Findings suggest that the program has been successful in the following ways: 1) It has provided visibility to the issue of forced migration back to Mexico; 2) It helped to expedite changes in legislation that now make it easier for anyone with partial studies outside Mexico to continue with their education in a HEI in the country; 3) It provided an alternative, not only to students who faced deportation but also to those who willingly saw an opportunity to continue with their studies at an institution in their place of birth. While other findings also suggest tensions between the attention given to this issue (especially after the fact that the number of participants is still marginal), we argue that this analysis is critical and timely given the drastic measures imposed on these students during these unprecedented times.

Authors

• Monica Irene Camacho Lizarraga, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE)

• Santiago Castiello-Gutiérrez, University of Arizona