When applying to jobs, Yanira Rivera met nearly all of the requirements.
Born in El Salvador, Rivera is an honors student at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, part of the City University of New York, where many of the opportunities for students involve working with government agencies. But Rivera, who’s undocumented, was ineligible because of her immigration status.
“I felt like I was kind of losing hope, and I was losing my liking education,” said Rivera, 19. “My mentality was, here I am trying to further my education so I can find opportunities and can get up there. But it was very frustrating because there was always that restriction.
And I was like, how can I get those opportunities like everybody else?”
Through a school newsletter, Rivera found Beyond Rising, a five-week summer internship program with employers in the Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn, including several on college campuses. The nonprofit behind the initiative, Oyate Group, believe it’s the only such program for undocumented youth, traditionally shut out of other jobs because of their immigration status.
With 50 participants this summer, Beyond Rising is serving more than double the number of young people than it did in its first year, in 2022. But expansion hasn’t kept up with demand.
Applications for Beyond Rising surged this year — up to 1,800 program hopefuls from 500 last summer. That’s due in part to a coordinated outreach campaign with education partners, as more migrant students enrolled in local public schools.
But the overwhelming response, nonprofit leaders said, is also a sign that undocumented teens need more internship opportunities.
According to Oyate Group’s estimates, the city-run Summer Youth Employment Program excludes more than 11,000 students each year due to their immigration status.
In recent years, the city rolled out SYEP Pathways for young people who, for whatever reason, can’t enroll in the traditional program, and complete projects for a stipend instead. There are 1,900 slots in the program this summer — nearly seven times the size as when it launched in 2022 — but it’s only open to specific schools with no citywide application process.
“The demand has always been there, for sure,” said Tomas Ramos, founder and president of Oyate Group. “Has it increased because of the influx of migrants? One can assume so. But obviously, from last year to this year, our applications have gone up tremendously.”
On a recent visit to one of the work sites, an education policy and research center at Columbia Teachers College, Rivera and a fellow intern were studying school funding and rounding up the latest developments for a newsletter. The cohort had access to the college’s library, where they joked around on standing desks with a treadmill, before getting back to work on a slide deck to pitch a podcast.
The opportunity was particularly well-timed for Yordani Rodriguez, a recent graduate of Thomas Edison Career and Technical Education High School in Jamaica Hills, Queens, who will start with a full-ride to Columbia University this fall. He’s applied to continue his internship year-round.
Rodriguez, 18, was born in the Dominican Republic and doesn’t shy away from discussing his immigration status.
“But it’s something you aren’t necessarily going to feel comfortable talking about in an academic space or a workplace,” Rodriguez said. “Being part of Oyate now, especially on Fridays, it’s kind of comforting to be surrounded in a room full undocumented people.”
At the end of each week, participants across the city gather together in the Bronx for workshops, with high school students in the morning and college kids in the afternoon. Sessions range from financial literacy to mental health, and young people give feedback on the topics they’d like to see covered.
Participants earn a stipend of $500 for 30 hours of work per week on reloadable debit cards through MoCaFi, a high-profile vendor known for contracting with the city to provide migrant families with payments for food and baby supplies. (The city’s program, SYEP Pathways, offers a $552 stipend for 60 hours.)
Rivera, who’s been financially independent for two years, uses her earnings to pay rent, while contributing to her employer.
“People actually value my work for who I am,” Rivera said, “and they’re not stuck on the fact I wasn’t born here.”
