DREAMERS: “Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, announced Friday [1-12-18] that they are donating $33 million to provide college scholarships for undocumented students who were brought to the country illegally as children.
The contribution by the couple is the largest ever to the TheDream.US, a nonprofit co-founded in 2014 by former Washington Post owner Don Graham, who sold the newspaper to Bezos in 2013.
The organization said that the money will provide scholarships to 1,000 undocumented students who are currently protected from deportation by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that President Donald Trump plans to phase out unless Congress acts… The undocumented immigrants are not eligible to receive student financial aid from the federal government and most states. Through the scholarship program, they can receive up to $33,000 in aid over four years to help pay for college at one of 70 partner institutions. The program said it currently funds 2,850 Dreamers…
The donation from Bezos comes as a large number of corporate executives, especially from the technology industry, have called on Congress to find a permanent solution for DACA beneficiaries. Earlier this week, Bezos was among more than 100 CEOs who signed an open letter to lawmakers asking for legislation to be passed no later than Jan. 19, the same date government funding expires under a stopgap spending bill. DACA has become tied to those spending negotiations.”
-Michael Stratford and Steven Overly, “Amazon’s Bezos to give $33M for 1,000 Dreamer scholarships,” Politico, Jan. 12, 2018 11:12am