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Undocumented Students Fear Deportation In North Carolina

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest.
Wikimedia Commons
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Wikimedia Commons
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest.

A conversation about immigration with WRAL reporter Leyla Santiago and immigration attorneys Joanna Gaughan and Evelyn Smallwood

Riverside high school senior Wildin David Guillen Acosta was headed to school on a typical morning in January when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained him and took him into custody.

Acosta is being held in a facility in Georgia, awaiting deportation to his native Honduras. Acosta says he came to the United States to escape the ultimatum of a violent gang: join us or we will kill you.

Acosta's plight is one shared by thousands of undocumented individuals in the United States and students are particularly fearful of deportation since the Obama administration increased raids as an enforcement mechanism in 2014.

Host Frank Stasio talks with WRAL reporter Leyla Santiago about Acosta's case and the effects on other students. He also talks with immigration attorneys Joanna Gaughan and Evelyn Smallwood about the detention policies and conditions.

Copyright 2016 North Carolina Public Radio

Will Michaels started his professional radio career at WUNC.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.