Mexican-born honor student faces deportation

Published: 2004-04-07

AIKEN, S.C. (CNS) -- Her principal calls her an exemplary student, and as a sophomore she is a national finalist in an academic competition. She is popular at school, goes to church and considers herself an American. Griselda Lopez Negrete has never been in trouble, yet she faces imminent deportation to a country she does not know and where she has no immediate relatives. "Griselda's story is tragic, but not unique," said Josh Bernstein, federal policy director for the National Immigration Law Center, an immigrant advocacy organization. The 15-year-old's story is that she is an illegal alien, even though she was brought to the states from Mexico as an infant and knows no other home but Aiken. Her mother died from an aneurysm in South Carolina when Lopez, one of four daughters, was 8. The teen found out about her own undocumented status suddenly and harshly when she went with her aunt to an immigration hearing to translate for her -- and was arrested by the Department of Homeland Security. "I never expected this to happen. I never expected anyone to actually arrest me," she told The Catholic Miscellany, newspaper of the Diocese of Charleston.

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