A DACA renewal fund set up earlier this month by the Mission Asset Fund has gathered $3 million to help pay the fees of DACA recipients who are renewing their permits. That’s enough to pay for $6,000 application fees, and 4,000 people have already taken advantage of the fund. Two thousand opportunities (scholarships, as Mission Asset Fund is calling them) remain to be claimed.
The fund is the largest of its kind in the nation, fund organizers say, and it’s open to any DACA recipients nationwide.
Even after the Trump administration’s announcement that it would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which gives people who were brought into the country as children without documentation permits to work, renewals are still possible for certain recipients. Those whose permits expire between Sept. 9, 2017 and March 5, 2018, are eligible to renew and receive the scholarships.
Some 800,000 people around the country use the program, and about 154,000 of them are eligible for renewal.
Mission Asset Fund says all applications get reviewed the same day, and those granted receive a check made out to the Department of Homeland Security to submit to the government. The check is mailed to the applicant the day after MAF reviews their case; the applicant subsequently mails their application for renewal and the check to the government.
DACA recipients can apply for the funds online at LC4DACA.org through Friday, Sept. 29. Local participants, however, who are able to come to the Mission Asset Fund offices at 3269 Mission Str. in person can submit applications for a scholarship as late as Monday and Tuesday of next week.
Where does Mission Asset Fund get the money? Is it from individual donors or are government funds used? Seems like a huge amount of money.
From Mission Asset Fund:
“Philanthropic supporters of this fund include: the Weingart Foundation, The California Endowment, The James Irvine Foundation, The Klarman Family Foundation, Marin Community Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation, The Chavez Family Foundation, The San Francisco Office of Civic Engagement & Immigrant Affairs, and through the generosity of individual donors across the country.”