When Carolina Silva became the first-ever full-time staff member at the Arizona nonprofit Scholarships A-Z in 2020, the energy was high on community efforts to support undocumented youth in Arizona on their journey to higher education.
During more than a decade of organizing to win access to in-state tuition for undocumented students, and supplement the gaps in aid access, Scholarships A-Z was a consistent presence. The group had brought together a vibrant community of young people and their allies in Southern Arizona.
In 2026, that need, and community, remains, but the reality of what the Trump administration’s aggressive enforcement policy means for young people brought to the United States as children is casting a shadow over education access efforts.
For some, it has made them wonder what their future could look like in America, Silva says.
“Students might not even see a future in this country because of everything that’s happening,” Silva said.
Now, as executive director of Scholarships A-Z, Silva — herself a former undocumented young person — is at the frontlines of helping DACA holders navigate this moment.
The DACA program was created to provide immigrants brought to the U.S. as children with work permits and protection from deportation. That protection was not permanent legal status, but rather an exercise of prosecutorial discretion that both parties had respected for decades.
This May, Silva was one of the spokespeople amid the immigration arrest of Karla Toledo, a longtime Tucson resident, DACA holder and former board member at Scholarships A-Z. Toledo was released after five days in detention and the charges against her dismissed, only to be placed back in deportation proceedings soon after.
There are 495,320 people with active DACA status in the U.S. as of December 31, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data. An estimated 18,450 of those individuals with active DACA status are in Arizona, the fourth largest number in the U.S.
Home is Here, a national campaign advocating for DACA recipients, said the Department of Homeland Security has confirmed they have detained 270 DACA recipients, deported 86 DACA recipients, and deported 174 DACA applicants.
Arizona Luminaria sat down with Silva to talk about how she came to this work, and what’s next. The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Q: What brought you to the work you are doing right now?
A: When I was 17 years old and I was looking at going to college — I myself was undocumented — I really found myself navigating the process alone. I really didn’t have any educators supporting me when I shared my status. I felt like I was jumping through hoops, and door after door was closing.
Eventually I was able to find an online community of other undocumented students. At the time I was in the state of Utah, and I couldn’t get access to in-state tuition, but I found the scholarships list that Scholarships A-Z made. Now I’m a naturalized citizen, thank goodness, but what stayed with me was that I had to navigate that experience by myself.
When I got into grad school and got my doctorate in education, it became very clear that even people who had all this training and research in the education world, they still didn’t know how to support students like me. So that’s when I was like, “OK, I need to continue doing this work.”
Q: How has the work of Scholarships A-Z shifted in this moment?
A: Scholarships A-Z has been around since 2009, and we were first created as a scholarship list.
A student at Pima Community College was really struggling to find scholarships. She did a lot of deep research and was just like: “You know what? I’m going to create this list.” And then she went to her educators and said: “I want to make this accessible to more students.” Her and a few Pima College counselors put together our very first scholarship website which then became Scholarships A-Z. So that’s how it all started.
In the early days, they kind of functioned like a club. Undocumented students would meet every Friday. They would do skill-building workshops, and hang out. It created this community of young leaders, and those folks fought for in-state tuition at Pima, and then won, and then it got taken away.
It’s been this back-and-forth of access. In 2017, as we partnered with different groups across the state, we really heard from families: we just need programming for undocumented students. The scholarship list is great, but they also have to navigate enrollment and then retention.
It’s not just about enrolling and they’re done, it’s really about retention and continuing to support them as they go through their journey, so they can complete their pathway regardless of what it is.
Right now unfortunately those students obviously are being attacked and it’s really sad to see that. We probably have the most access that we’ve had to higher education in the U.S. for a while, but we have the harshest enforcement.
Q: What has it looked like to support directly-impacted people in this moment?
A: It’s been really exhausting and time consuming, to be honest. We already serve a high need community. Our rapid response line has been active since 2010, and right now we have to do mutual aid and we have to do emergency response. It’s just been really difficult.
New support has been mainly partners that were already in our network and groups — none of this appeared overnight. Tucson is just really fortunate to have a really strong network of grassroots groups.
Still, attacks on our immigrant community are just very scary because I don’t think any of us have the capacity to keep up with it regardless of people coming together. It’s still really awful and heavy to carry.
The first thing, when we think about Karla, is that should not have happened, right? Karla has protection [of DACA]. Right off the bat we knew how we responded to the case would send a message to our community. I was also surprised that she wasn’t released Monday.
I think that speaks to the power that these authorities in this administration have and how it takes a lot more to pressure them now to do the right thing.
A timeline of tuition access for undocumented students and the fight around DACA
2006
- Proposition 300 passes, restricting access to in-state tuition and state-funded financial assistance for undocumented youth.
2009
- Scholarships A-Z is founded
2012
- The Obama administration adopts the DACA program to allow undocumented youth brought to the country to work in the United States and protect them from deportation for two years
2015
- A Maricopa County Superior Court finds DACA students were eligible for in-state tuition
2017
- Trump administration attempts to rescind DACA
- Scholarships A-Z starts its first program, the Immigrant Scholarship Hustle or ISH
2018
- The state Supreme Court rules that that undocumented Arizona students would not be eligible for in-state tuition
2017-2019
- Scholarships A-Z helps more than undocumented 50 students gain scholarships and organizes efforts to inform educators
- Scholarships A-Z focuses on getting immigrant resource centers open at Pima Community College and then the University of Arizona
2020
- The Supreme Court overturns the Trump administration’s efforts to rescind DACA
- Carolina Silva becomes Scholarships A-Z first executive director
- Scholarships A-Z distributes funds to support immigrant families impacted by COVID-19
2022
- After a sustained campaign, Proposition 308 passes, a 2022 ballot initiative securing in-state tuition for undocumented students who had graduated from an Arizona high school after attending for at least two years. Scholarships A-Z joined efforts with the Yes on Prop 308! Coalition on this effort.
- Scholarships A-Z launches an undocumented youth empowerment program to work with young people who are not moving toward four-year college but are considering other options like community college or an associate’s degree
2024
- Scholarships A-Z celebrates its 15th anniversary as a formal organization
2026
- As the DACA program remains in litigation, the Board of Immigration Appeals, which sets standards for immigration courts nationally, says in an April case that being a DACA recipient does not automatically provide relief from deportation
Republish our articles for free, online or in print.
