Graciela Nuñez and Monserrat Padilla, DACA recipients and activists who have been campaigning for protecting Dreamers' rights in Washington. Credit: Daniel Berman

Graciela Nuñez and Monserrat Padilla, DACA recipients and activists who have been campaigning for protecting Dreamers rights in Washington.

Graciela Nuñez and Monserrat Padilla, DACA recipients and activists who have been campaigning for protecting Dreamers’ rights in Washington. Daniel Berman

Good news, regardless of what the Democrats in the US Senate decide to do:

The state Senate overwhelmingly approved legislation Wednesday that would allow undocumented immigrants of college age, who were brought to the United States as children and graduated from a Washington high school, to be eligible for some new types of state financial aid.

That would be true for a student currently allowed to stay in the country under DACA even if Congress doesn’t pass legislation before a March 5 deadline, allowing some students’ protection to expire.

This is the legislation I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, the “Washington Dream Act” that failed last year. The bill, which passed 38-11 with bipartisan support, will allow Dreamers in the state to continue to be part of the state’s College Bound program, keep their in-state tuition, and it expands access to financial aid for other undocumented immigrant students. Hopefully, the bipartisan success of the bill in the state Senate foreshadows a DACA deal on the federal level, but we can only hope.

Sydney Brownstone writes about the environment, sexual assault, and general news for The Stranger. In 2017, her boss and Pulitzer winner Eli Sanders nominated her coverage of Seattle porn scammer Matt...