Meet Maryora, A Teen Who May Be Deported To Her Death In The Next Month
Meet Maryora, A Teen Who May Be Deported To Her Death In The Next Month
by Esther Yu-Hsi Lee May 19, 2016 8:00 am
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Maryora (middle, back) fled Honduras in 2015 to be with her family. She may potentially be deported back to Central America.
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WASHINGTON D.C. — Maryora Nicole Urbina is an effusive 15-year-old in her freshman year at a Chicago, Illinois- area high school. She enjoys her science classes and dreams about becoming a pediatrician one day. But there’s something that sets Maryora apart from her classmates: She spent two months last year traveling to the United States from Honduras after a gang member tried to kill her.
When she arrived at the U.S. border, Maryora sought asylum, a form of humanitarian relief that allows certain immigrants to stay in the country permanently. But her asylum case was denied — and she may soon be deported back to the same horrific conditions from which she fled.
The Obama administration recently announced that it will begin a series of deportation raids to target Central American women and children who crossed the southern U.S. border over the past two years. Obama officials say these immigration operations are in the interest of public safety and border security.
“We stress that these operations are limited to those who were apprehended at the border after January 1, 2014, have been ordered removed by an immigration court, and have no pending appeal or pending claim for asylum or other humanitarian relief under our laws,” Sarah Rodriguez, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson, told ThinkProgress in an email.
Maryora is currently awaiting a court hearing in 2018 to appeal her case. In the meantime, she fits ICE’s criteria for potential deportation. That’s why she joined her mother and her two younger sisters in the nation’s capital this week. They were part of a caravan of immigrant families who are calling on the Obama administration to halt its impending deportation raids.
“I’m afraid because they tried to kill me,” Maryora told ThinkProgress on Wednesday, in between visits with congressional lawmakers. “I don’t want to die, you know. I came by myself to be with my mom and I almost died because of the violence in my country. I wanted to be safe in this country, to be a better person.”
More:
http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2016/05/19/3779332/central-american-families-raids/
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