WASHINGTON
At 23, Mariana should be carefree. She is finishing her undergraduate degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, and has been accepted to a master’s program at Harvard University’s education school.
But life is not so simple for Mariana, who insisted that only her first name be published because she is in the United States illegally and worries she could be deported to her home country of Guatemala.
“I’m even afraid of eating an apple in the library because I’m afraid of getting caught,” she says.
Mariana also worries about how she will pay her tuition and what kind of work she will get after she completes school. “What happens next? Without a work permit, how do you exercise your degree?” she asks.
Mariana is among an estimated 50,000 undocumented students in U.S. colleges today. These students would be among the people who would benefit from a part of an immigration bill that the U.S. Senate plans to resume work on this week.
