Bigger India
Day of Dreamer on the Hill: Undocumented Parsi Ph.D. Student Meets Congress to Advocate for DREAM Act
Undocumented students have protested the Democrats’ acquiescence.
Indian American Boe Mendewala, an undocumented Ph.D. student studying physics at the University of California-Merced, travelled to Washington, DC Jan. 19 to urge members of Congress to pass a clean DREAM Act, permanently protecting 800,000 Dreamers from deportation.
“I love science. It is such a beautiful way to understand the world. But I don’t know whether I will ever be able to pursue my dream of doing research in physics,” Mendewala, who has lived in the U.S. since the age of five, told India-West, explaining that her DACA status expires in April 2019 — just after her expected graduation date — which will leave her without a work permit, and no relief from deportation.
“I went to DC to show Congress that this affects real lives, and is causing real damage,” she said, adding that she wants Congress to pass a DREAM Act which includes a path to citizenship, along with comprehensive immigration reform to fix a broken system.