The fight to expand immigrant youth access to legal status and higher education over the past nine years has produced a steadily growing stream of immigrant youth activists who have become politically engaged through high school and campus organizations, national coalitions, internet blogs, and youth projects within immigrant rights organizations. Furthermore, immigrant youth organizing is not limited to large cities that are known for being popular immigrant destinations like Miami, New York City and Los Angeles. Active youth organizing is also growing in regions like the Heartland, Southeast, and Midwest, which have had rapid immigrant population increases in recent years and little to no social justice infrastructure.

Youth organizing for access to legal status and higher education has provided a stepping stone for immigrant youth to become politically active, to gain exposure to different streams of social justice work, and to share responsibility for building a movement based on principles of social inclusion and justice.

Opportunities for youth engagement within the immigrant rights movement have always existed. An early formation of the UWD Network was created as a result of efforts among key national advocacy groups, led by NILC, to develop an informal coalition of organizers and advocates to promote equal access to educational opportunities for immigrant youth. NILC has for many years been instrumental in calling the attention of policymakers to the circumstances and inequities faced by undocumented students, which ultimately led to the introduction of the DREAM Act in 2001. As immigrant youth came of age and learned about the DREAM Act, they too sought to get actively involved. Additionally, the Center for Community Change, through its Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) project, has at one point also convened youth organizers from its member organizations for training opportunities and strategy sessions, including a national meeting in Boise, Idaho in 2007. Meanwhile Dream activists and organizers were connecting on weekly conference calls under the name “The United We Dream Coalition”, which was staffed by the National Immigration Law Center. The Calls served as a space for updates and strategy for DREAM Act policy. Nevertheless, there was a lack of national infrastructure to sustain the energy and growing political astuteness of immigrant youth organizers.

When the DREAM Act failed to get sixty votes in 2007, several of our groups lost membership and folks were not sure where to go. Attendance on national calls dropped, and many groups focused on 2008 election work. In the void, a group of organizers and leaders came together several times in 2008 to reflect on the DREAM campaign and talk about building a movement and organization that would not crumble on up or down votes in congress, but that was rooted in a commitment to build an immigrant youth movement that would work to not only pass the DREAM Act, but reshape and influence the broader movement for immigrant rights. That we needed to evolve from a conference call to a powerful organizing network that had its own resources, can set its own priorities, and produce results.

In December 2008, the groups of leaders convened a coalition meeting DC with the help of NILC. The participants met to discuss future advocacy efforts to ensure that immigrant youth obtain access to legal status and higher education. Present in the room was a dynamic and overwhelmingly diverse group of immigrant youth leaders. From the meeting, it was clear that an informal coalition structure could no longer suffice to sustain the much broader long-term vision of building an immigrant youth movement well beyond advocating for a change in immigration laws. Furthermore, there was a shared vision by key youth leadership that a national structure should be created that was led by young people whose lives are directly impacted by unjust immigration laws. The immigrant youth leaders agreed that NILC should continue to anchor the network and NILC agreed to support it as a youth-led organizing network and become its fiscal sponsor. As a result, the United We Dream Network was formed.