In Immigration Nightmare, El Salvador Teen Gets Some Good News

Yosselin Herrera has been spared deportation for now. (CBS North Carolina screen grab)

By NAN Contributor

News Americas, CHARLOTTE, NC, Weds. Feb. 1, 2017: While the spotlight has been heavily pointed on Donald Trump’s immigration order that has placed even legal residents from seven predominantly Muslim countries into a migration quagmire, a 16-year-old El Salvador teen facing deportation got a bit of good news Tuesday.

Yosselin Herrera, who fled her homeland to escape rape and gang violence came and entered the United States illegally by walking and taking buses to join her family in North Carolina, got her immigration case postponed until Nov. 1, 2017, saving her from immediate deportation.

This will allow her time to pursue a parallel asylum application at a federal administrative hearing in Virginia, her attorney, Evelyn Smallwood of Durham, said at a press conference Tuesday.

The Chatham County, N.C. high school student wiped tears away after the ruling.

Herrera has settled in with her mother, her US citizen step-father and siblings in Siler City, outside of Raleigh, learned English and became a high school honors student.

“I want to be able to follow my dream, and be with my family,” she said. “I have to wake up every morning scared that I’m going to be deported some day.”

Returning to El Salvador, she said, could be a death sentence.