_                     In the past few years, the UCLA Labor Center has emerged as a national center for research, education, and policy on undocumented immigrant student issues. Many undocumented students were brought to this country as young children and have overcome racial, linguistic, and economic barriers to attend higher education institutions. In spite of their academic accomplishments, they are barred from most scholarships, are ineligible for student loans, and cannot legally work due to their immigration status. For many, there is no pathway to legalization.

_                    In 2007, the Labor Center taught the first course on immigrant rights and higher education at UCLA. The book Underground Undergrads: UCLA Undocumented Immigrant Students Speak Out originated and was inspired by that course. In 2008, the book was the first published to capture the stories of undocumented immigrant students. The UCLA Labor Center has organized more than a hundred events to promote the book, and these events have served as educational and leadership development opportunities to build communities of undocumented students on campuses across the nation. Received with enthusiasm in the academic community, among policy makers, and by the general public, Underground Undergrads is now in its fourth printing and has sold more than ten thousand copies to date.
                    Originally the Underground Undergrads project, the Dream Resource Center was created in 2011 to develop educational and policy materials to help undocumented students access higher education. The Dream Resource Center promotes equal access to education by developing educational resources, leadership tools, and support mechanisms for immigrant students, along with educating the public about local and national policies. The main objective of this initiative is to build the Dream Resource Center infrastructure to prepare for the day when immigration reform would provide undocumented immigrant youth with a pathway to citizenship. At that time, there will be a tremendous need to provide educational and legal assistance to hundreds of thousands of youth who could be encouraged to apply for legal status through higher education. To build this infrastructure, the Dream Resource Center includes a leadership development component and a communications strategy. Ultimately immigrant student leaders trained through this national initiative are in the very best position to develop vital resources, strengthen new media outreach, contact the ethnic press, reach out to high school counselors and teachers, and encourage a new generation of immigrant youth to obtain legal status by pursuing their educational dreams.