What Drives Us | undocucarolina

NC is home to 865,000 immigrants. 8,741 undocumented students attend NC colleges. 3,000 undocumented students graduate from NC high schools each year. 24,050 DACA recipients live in NC. 35% of them are undocumented. Half of these are college-aged young adults. 7% of all North Carolinians are U.S. citizen children of immigrants. For more than a quarter century North Carolina has led the South as a new immigrant destination. By 2015 immigrants made up 8% of the state population, and an additional 7% were U.S. citizens with at least one immigrant parent. Today over one and a half million people in North Carolina are immigrants or children of immigrants, and issues of immigrant exclusion are of growing concern not only for our campus, but in our communities, neighborhoods, and our state as a whole.

Nearly 150,000 North Carolinians are undocumented, college-aged, young adults. Another 170,000 are U.S. citizen children living with an undocumented family member. Members of the Carolina community touched by undocumentation include students, staff, faculty, alumni, and supporters. Some are undocumented or hold DACA or other precarious immigration statuses. Many others are U.S. citizens who form part of mixed-status families.

At UndocuCarolina we believe all members of our community should have a shot at a quality education like the kind offered here at UNC. But North Carolina’s policies regarding undocumented student access to higher education are some of the most restrictive in the country.

UNC staff attending an UndocuCarolina Ally Training. As an icebreaker, attendees played a game of human bingo.

Two of the UndocuCarolina Storytellers share their story on how undocumentation impacts their lives.