A Yale University graduate student is constantly watching his phone as he waits for news on his mother, who is detained and could be deported to Honduras, a country where he says she won’t get the medical treatment she needs as a survivor of stage-four cancer.
Cristian Padilla Romero, a 24-year-old doctoral student, created an online petition asking for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release his mother, and raised more than $39,000 through a crowdfunding campaign for her legal and medical needs.
Padilla Romero, a Ph.D student in Latin
American history, faces an uncertain future himself: He is part of a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which shields young immigrants from deportation.