Advocacy and Policy

A New Path: Deportation to Honduras is a new guide from the Education Justice Project that provides clear, practical information for individuals facing deportation to Honduras.

The guide covers:

• What to expect upon arrival in Honduras, including how to stay safe;
• Information on housing, employment, education, and more;
• Practical tips for navigating the return and reintegration process;
• A directory of organizations offering support.

Created collaboratively with non-profits and recently deported individuals, our goal is not to facilitate deportation. Rather, we aim to deliver critical information to those facing deportation.

Download the free pdfs (in English and Spanish) at https://reentryillinois.net/a-new-path-individual-chapters/#honduras-deportation-guide

This Honduras deportation guide is part of a larger resource called A New Path: A Guide to the Challenges and Opportunities After Deportation. We are in the process of updating this guide for 2026 and are sharing out individual chapters as they become available. To request copies of the most recent print edition, please fill out this request form.

This press release details the U.S. Department of Education's announcement of a new path for borrowers who are incarcerated to exit default through consolidation, providing them access to improved credit and to better repayment options than ever before. Borrowers who had student loans before becoming incarcerated can now consolidate their loans to get out of default, providing them with certain types of loans—including Perkins Loans and commercially held Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFEL) loans—to gain access to income-driven repayment (IDR) plans like the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan. Borrowers who are incarcerated can still sign up for Fresh Start until September 30, 2024, as an additional option to exit default. Previously, this population of borrowers would have to rehabilitate their loans to get out of default, rather than having the option to consolidate.

This news article from the Washington Post explores how thousands of minors like Yusef Qualls-El, who is highlighted in the article, received sentences of life without parole and entered prison at an age when their peers were going to college or starting their careers. But inside, education is often reserved for those who will soon return to society. As a result, those who were seen as the least likely to get out had the fewest opportunities. The article showcases Yusef Qualls-El's story and his next steps.

This article reports that many people in Illinois prisons believe they are not getting the full sentence reductions allowed under a new law that gives credit for participating in education, work, and other programs. As many as 1,000 people who are still in custody could be eligible for immediate release if they received proper sentence recalculations. 

This report from the Prison Policy Initiative offers some much-needed clarity by piecing together the data about this country’s disparate systems of confinement. It provides a detailed look at where and why people are locked up in the U.S., and dispels some common myths about mass incarceration to focus attention on overlooked issues that urgently require reform.

This news article from Open Campus examines how disabled students in prison have not only been denied access to extra supports, like extended testing time or having text read aloud to them, but also didn’t even know they might qualify.

This resource from Jobs for the Future (JFF) can help students, advocates, and other stakeholders better understand the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

FERPA is a federal law that protects the privacy of students’ education records. The term “education records” means those records that are (1) directly related to a student and (2) maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a party acting for the agency or institution. The law applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education.

At the postsecondary level, FERPA affords “eligible students” the right to have access to their education records, the right to seek to have the records amended, and the right to have some control over the disclosure of information from the records.  

The Federal Interagency Reentry Council (FIRC) began work in 2011 to reduce recidivism and improve outcomes related to employment, education, housing, health, and child welfare. Comprising more than 20 federal agencies, the Reentry Council coordinated and leveraged existing federal resources, dispelled myths and clarified policies, elevated programs and policies that work, and reduced the policy barriers to successful reentry.

On April 29, 2016, President Barack Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum that formally established the Federal Interagency Reentry Council to help ensure the federal government continues this important work. 

This report responds to that directive by laying out specific agency actions—development of training, technical assistance, and strategic communications—to ensure federal staff, as well as state, local, and community stakeholders, are aware of the tools available to them, and are using them to implement robust reentry policies and programs.

The Federal Interagency Reentry Council worked to reduce recidivism and improve employment, education, housing, health and child welfare outcomes. Consisting of more than 20 federal agencies, the Reentry Council coordinated and leveraged existing federal resources that were targeted to reentry, used the bully pulpit to dispel myths, clarified policies and provided visibility to programs and policies that work, and reduced the policy barriers to successful reentry. The council was recognized in a 2014 GAO report as one of four model interagency collaborations, and the council’s collective work at the federal level—detailed in this fact sheet—has set a positive example for many states, several of which have started similar councils.

The bipartisan Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), signed by President Obama on July 22, 2014, created a new vision for how America prepares an educated and skilled workforce that expands opportunities for workers and employers.

The 21st-century public workforce development system created through WIOA builds closer ties between business leaders, state and local Workforce Development Boards, labor unions, community colleges, non-profit organizations, youth-serving organizations, and state and local officials to deliver a more job-driven approach to training and skills development.

These final regulations provide the foundation upon which services to individuals and businesses can be strengthened and improved over time.

In October 2022, the U.S. Department of Education published final regulations for the federal Pell Grant program that promote accountability, expand college access to students who are incarcerated, and strengthen protection for veterans, service members, students, and borrowers.

This fact sheet includes additional details on the major provisions of the rule and changes made in response to public comment.

The Incarceration Nations Network (INN) developed this toolkit to push for long-term systemic change that moves spending away from futile punishment and devastating harm and toward community justice. This toolkit describes what this effort looks like in the context of the United States. 

In this paper, Jobs for the Future elaborates on over a decade of work supporting community college access and completion to offer a more inclusive policy approach. This approach is specifically targeted to ensuring that our postsecondary systems are designed in ways that narrow achievement gaps, especially for those populations of students and workers who are at particular risk of not gaining the skills, competencies, and credentials needed to share in and contribute to our nation’s economic growth.

This is the full text of the FAFSA Simplification Act, as passed by the 116th Congress.

In this webinar hosted by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), experts on administering financial aid in prison settings discuss what financial aid administrators and prison education practitioners can do to ensure they are prepared to effectively support incarcerated learners with Pell Grant eligibility.

Learn tips to successfully administer Pell Grants for incarcerated students and gain an understanding of the existing regulations and guidance impacting prison education programs and the tools available to assist the financial aid and prison education communities when serving this student population.

The Rise Up Conference seeks to liberate higher education during and after prison. It highlights the role of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people in birthing this movement, the ways in which these spaces have been occupied by others, the assets we offer to these spaces, and the ways in which allies can help foster liberation. The conference also provides perspectives on higher education during and after prison that are unique to those with lived expertise.

The Beyond Walls compilation shares stories of individuals resisting the PIC and demonstrating the importance of relationships inside and out. The films also show the generational harm of the PIC, as well as next steps to build a world without police and prisons. The films add up to about 70 minutes, intentionally short to leave ample time for panelists and discussion. The panel will consist of previously incarcerated people and people involved in abolition and work to decrease suffering, including exoneree and legal assistant Steven Lazar, reproductive justice organizer Alejandra Pablos, West Virginia Drug Intervention Institute Outreach Coordinator Kenneth Matthews, and multimedia artist and organizer Sylvia Ryerson.

Click the link to see dates for upcoming screenings.