When you hear about the U.S.-Mexico border, it's often in reference to migration and protocols designed to keep people in place—walls, barricades, asylum hearings. But for Carlos Tenorio and thousands of other students who live in Mexico and go to college in the United States, crossing the border is part of their daily commute.

It takes a special dedication for these students to get to class each day. Tenorio, who attends Southwestern College in Chula Vista, California, describes what that arduous process is like in this interview.

Illustration: Alphavector/Shutterstock

For thousands of high school graduates, this time of year is all about looking to the future—namely, preparing for college in the fall. Their undocumented peers, however, might feel like they’re going backward.

This year marks the first time since 2012 that the federal policy giving immigrant youth who lack permanent legal status in the United States the ability to work and pay for college has been effectively cut off. 

As a Black student raised by a single mother, Makia Green believes she benefited from a college admissions program that gave preference to students of color from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. And, as a borrower who still owes just over $20,000 on her undergraduate student loans, she has been counting on President Joe Biden’s promised debt relief.

Now, both affirmative action and the student loan cancellation plan could soon be dismantled by the U.S. Supreme Court. To Green and many other people of color, the efforts to roll them back reflect a larger backlash to racial progress in higher education.