Dreams on Wheels is one of many programs created and sustained by the New Mexico Dream Team (NMDT), a group of University of New Mexico students with undocumented status who are affiliated with the national 501(c)(3), United We Dream. Dreams on Wheels travels to rural towns across New Mexico and gives families the opportunity to apply for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) applications. NMDT heard reports from undocumented families about lawyers taking advantage of their vulnerable status. Sometimes families pay as much as $2000 – $3000 per child on unnecessary legal fees, even though DACA applications only cost $465. While meeting with families, Dreams on Wheels also provides information to immigrant families about their legal rights to education, driver’s licenses, and emergency health care, which it compiles from organizations such as Somos un Pueblo Unido, El Centro de Igualdad y Derechos, and the national United We Dream organization, in 2016, the program visited the rural towns of Farmington six times, Roswell four times, Anthony five times, and Hobbes once.

Dreams on Wheels adapts its provision of DACA services to each town’s context. Factors such as proximity to border patrol checkpoints, racism, and fear impede Dreams on Wheels’s services. Towns’ political leanings influence the extent to which Dreams on Wheels can interact with communities. Dreams on Wheels efforts are complicated by mistrust that comes from a heavily politicized situation.  Because of the vulnerability of the undocumented population, Dreams on Wheels rarely engages in large-scale community events. Instead, Dreams on Wheels organizers often find a location free of charge, such as a church or a school, to set up a table with information about their services. A first step to building a relationship with a new community might even be the simple question, “Can we leave flyers here?” In this way, Dreams on Wheels gives people in the towns they visit the choice to visit advocates on their own terms.  

Building trust with people of undocumented status takes more than providing information. To establish trust, Dreams on Wheels advocates prioritize listening to the voices of the communities they reach out to. Even so, families sometimes send a friend who is a documented American to investigate whether Dreams on Wheels seems trustworthy. When families do come to Dreams on Wheels with a request or a problem, advocates respond first with the question, “What can we do for you?” After all, communities are their own experts. Organizer Estefany Gonzalez also notes that letting undocumented community members “get to know us” and “see how we are similar” heightens the sense of solidarity between them and Dreams on Wheels workers. Many Dreams on Wheels representatives are also undocumented Americans from rural towns who qualify for DACA and therefore have an acute understanding of the challenges facing the undocumented community.

Dreams on Wheels values fostering trust with both community members and with other advocacy organizations. All NMDT members who attend Dreams on Wheels clinics receive training from immigration attorneys at Santa Fe Dreamers Project and the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center. Dreams on Wheels also tries to coordinate with local advocacy groups so as not to offer services already available in a town through local groups. Estefany maintains that “when we form partnerships, that’s how we can learn and grow.” 

The New Mexico Dream Team itself was born out of a need for undocumented youth and families to share their voices. The Dream Team began as a student group at the University of New Mexico affiliated with New Mexico Dreamers in Action. Undocumented Americans often do not see themselves reflected in political narratives, so the Dream Team formed to create programs that communicate the struggles people face while living with undocumented status. Since becoming its own organization, the Dream Team strives to inform parents and families about their children’s education rights and to provide youth a platform to share their experiences. Because issues surrounding immigrant rights are complex, the Dream Team acts through a comprehensive approach of reaching out to undocumented families, educators, and a variety of organizations.

Currently, the New Mexico Dream Team has five chapters around the state, at two colleges and three high schools. Most of the chapters are in central New Mexico, around Albuquerque, but one is in Southern New Mexico, in Anthony. The Dream Team also offers educational workshops for teachers who have students with undocumented status.