UC Davis honor student facing deportation gets reprieve
June 20th, 2011 | by Alica Story |Mandeep Chahal, a pre-med honor student at UC Davis, and her mother facing deportation to India have been given a reprieve, their lawyer said today. Both were scheduled to be deported to India at 1 a.m. Wednesday.
Mandeep’s attorney, Kalpana Peddibhotla, said they were granted a stay of deportation by the Department of Homeland Security. “Mandeep and her mother have been released, though their situation has not been fully resolved,” Peddibhotla said in a statement. “I am in communication with the DHS and am hopeful that we will have a definitive resolution to their case soon. I and the family wish to thank the thousands of supporters from around the country who have advocated on their behalf without which I am fairly certain that Mandeep and her mother would have been deported.
A national campaign with over 3,000 signatures has asked the Obama administration to use its legal discretion to stop the deportation of the undocumented young woman who came to the United States at age 6 and was voted “Most Likely to Save The World” at Los Altos High School in Los Altos.
Chahal, 20, and her mother had already turned themselves into ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) custody in San Francisco. They live in Mountain View, where Mandeep’s mother was arrested several months ago on immigration violations.
At a press conference organized by America’s Voice Education Fund in Washington D.C., Chahal’s friends, teachers and a variety of immigration reform activists said her case highlights the urgent need for immigration reform to allow Chahal and promising young people like her who had no control over how they got into this country to stay and become productive citizens.
They called on ICE Director John Morton to delay the deportation based on her age when she was brought here, her length of time and her academic progress.
In a recent memo, Morton outlined the kind of cases that could be delayed based on the government’s discretion, and Mandeep meets all of these criteria, and more, said America’s Voice spokesman Michael Earls. “She and her mother will be one of the first cases to test the implementation of the Morton memo.”
Chalal’s mother applied for asylum, but her case was denied, said Jeanne Butterfield, an immigration law expert with the Raben Group.
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Tags: Facing Deportation, Honor Student, Reprieve