Quote:
Originally Posted by MarLures
My mother and I immigrated to the US 8 years ago. My Mom married my then step-dad whom she met in Hong Kong. He died within a year of their marriage, and my Mom never got to take care of our papers. After my step-dads death we moved in with my aunt and uncle but had to move out because my uncle was abusive. So we lived in a women's shelter once again hindering my Mom from being able to process our papers. So long story short my Mom is now re-married to my new step-dad here in California and we are trying to get our permanent residency cards. We have spent thousands of dollars in lawyer and immigration fees, but we still don't have them. I am just wondering if there is any help or anything that can hasten this process because I will be graduating high school in about 6 months and I cannot apply for a job nor can I fill out FAFSA to go to college. I'm not even sure if I'm allowed to go to college. I've asked this question to our lawyers and they haven't responded to me so I wanted to know where I stand in the matter. Am I going to be deported? Because I am 18 years of age now and I'm not sure what the law is about that.
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Hey there and welcome to the DAP. If you are in California, then you can attend college, period. You won't get deported for applying to or attending college. There might be some private institutions that will not allow attendance, but you can attend virtually any private school, and any public school.
Paying instate tuition might be a different story. If you were in attendance at any California high school for at least three years (and it doesn't have to be at just one school), then you can apply for AB 540. This is a helpful link explaining it better than I can:
http://www.maldef.org/ab540/ab540.cfm. Also, California unfortunately offers no forms of state financial aid, even non-competitive aid. I believe Texas is the only one that does this.
If you don't meet the requirements for AB 540, then try applying for private scholarships open to students regardless of status. There are scholarships for almost everything under the sun, and a good number of them are open to anyone. For more information on these and how and when to apply for them, as well as any requirements (submitting an essay, etc.) then I would recommend making an appointment with a counselor at your school.
Good luck and don't despair!!
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