“And I think it is healing behavior, to look at something so broken and see the possibility and wholeness in it.”
— adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy
The Texas Dream Act was signed into law in 2001, years before I ever walked across the stage at my high school graduation in 2014. I was five, maybe six at the time, probably watching Barney and playing with Barbies, completely unaware that a policy signed by then-Governor Rick Perry would one day allow me to attend college.
This law allows all students who reside in the state of Texas to access in-state tuition costs at public universities, regardless of immigration status. I think about policies like this not just in regards to access, but in terms of healing systemic divides. Education has always been one of the few tools that can lift immigrant communities higher, when it’s allowed to. The Texas Dream Act didn’t fix everything, but it cracked open a door that had long been sealed shut.
The summer before my senior year of high school was full of teen angst and existential dread for the future. I knew I was undocumented. My parents never hid it from me. I went through most of K-12 knowing that my student file was missing a very important set of nine numbers. While my peers were signing up for driver’s ed and applying for FAFSA, I was figuring out how to write a college essay about a future I wasn’t sure I could have.
My mother-in-law helped me write those essays. It’s funny to think about it now, mainly because I didn’t know she’d be my mother-in-law then. But also because, in all fairness, those essays weren’t that good. I was trying hard to hide my reality. Like many kids, I had been bullied relentlessly, but unlike many kids, my bully was my immigration status. I was terrified of what that status could do to end any ambitions and snuff the possibility of a future.
Yet, my college essays said a lot between the lines. They laid the foundations of a story I can now share of how it feels to dream in a country that doesn’t always feel like it wants you, and about how hope and heartbreak can live side by side.
Then came the acceptance letters. I remember the joy of opening them—followed almost immediately by the gut punch of being classified as an international student. The tuition numbers made my eyes blur. Once again, college felt like a dream meant for other people, not for me.
That’s when someone told me about the Texas Dream Act. If I’d lived in Texas long enough and signed an affidavit stating I, once available, intended to legalize my status, I could qualify for in-state tuition. It sounded too simple to be true. All I had to do was get that affidavit notarized and submit some financial forms. So I walked into a Frost Bank, clutching the paper like it might combust, absolutely convinced the notary would look at me, see undocumented written across my forehead, and hit a secret ICE button under the desk. They didn’t. They just stamped it and handed it back like it was any other Tuesday. That little stamp gave me a shot at a future I never knew I could have.
The Texas Dream Act didn’t give me a scholarship. It didn’t magically erase the barriers I faced. I still had to work multiple jobs. I still had no access to federal financial aid. I still carried the weight of my family’s uncertainty every day. But I got to attend and graduate from college. I got to start building the life that my parents crossed borders to give me. I saw my mother’s calloused hands and my dad’s constant backaches, knowing that the suffering was worth something.
In December 2018, I graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio thanks to the Texas Dream Act. In May 2025, I earned my master’s degree in public administration from New York University (this time with a full-scholarship) while still a DACA recipient. And in September 2024, I became a legal permanent resident. While I am no longer undocumented, the Texas Dream Act changed my life, and its impact reaches far beyond immigration status. My husband, my extended family, and my community—they have all benefited from my access to higher education. This is what policy can do. This is what investment in people looks like.
In-state tuition for undocumented students in Texas is under attack again. Multiple proposals are being pushed during this legislative session, two gaining traction in the Texas House and Senate. If either proposal is enacted, the Texas Dream Act would cease to exist. The Senate bill alone, if passed, would force existing students to pay back in-state tuition benefits. While the political debate feels loud and cold, I want to remind people that this isn’t about abstractions. It’s about real people like me, some of my best friends, and my chosen family. It’s about the Harvard graduates, the school teachers, the community organizers, and the stay-at-home parents, who were given a fighting chance to learn and give back. The Texas Dream Act wasn’t everything, but it was something—a foundation.
Let’s be clear: the legislative proposals advancing at the Texas legislature are cruel. Stripping students of access to education does not make Texas stronger; it makes it weaker, smaller, and scared of future potential.
I know that regardless of whether the Texas Dream Act survives this legislative session—or the next—undocumented students will continue to defy the odds. They always have. But it shouldn’t have to be this hard. We shouldn’t need to be exceptional just to be allowed in the classroom. Our immigration status does not define our intelligence, our passion, our perseverance, and our skills that we can apply in our communities.
Policies like the Texas Dream Act are more than lines of legislation. They’re lifelines. They’re blueprints for possibility. And if we’re willing to see the wholeness in something that’s been broken—just like adrienne maree brown says, maybe we can build something better, too.
FILED UNDER: Rick Perry, Students, Texas
