Santa Fe Dreamers Project was established in 2014 by Allegra Love, a former public school elementary teacher turned immigration lawyer. During her time in the classroom, Allegra saw firsthand the extremely negative impact that undocumented immigration status had on many of her students and their families. The harsh reality of undocumented status meant that no matter how dedicated her students were, or how much they achieved in their educational pursuits, their professional opportunities would always be limited by their lack of a social security number. After completing law school at the University of New Mexico and earning her credentials as a lawyer, Allegra formed the Santa Fe Dreamers Project in order to provide no-cost Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) related legal services for young people who came to the United States as small children. DACA provided these young ”Dreamers,” with temporary work authorization and protection from deportation. For the recipients, obtaining DACA status is an absolutely life changing event, and the benefits are substantial and numerous, not the least of which is the new found protection empowering them to pursue higher aspirations than were previously possible.
The organization operated under fiscal sponsorship for the first 3 years. The programming during this time was primarily focused on filing DACA applications and renewals working in partnership with Santa Fe Public Schools. Our scope expanded to include humanitarian visa services especially U Visa and Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJ). In September 2017 we were officially designated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Santa Fe Dreamers Project has provided legal services to thousands of undocumented immigrants and has expanded its scope of services to include many areas of immigration law. We have offices in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico as well as projects on the ground in rural areas of the state and in the Cd. Juarez/El Paso, TX border region.
