Filipino Harvard Grad Gets Reprieve From Deportation
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Harvard graduate from the Philippines facing deportation has been granted a one-year reprieve and released from detention.
Mark Ferales, a 31-year-old doctorate candidate at the University of California, San Diego, was brought to the U.S. on a travel visa when he was 10 after alleged hit men shot his father outside their home in Quezon City.
The family sought political asylum but when his father died in 2006, Ferales was left without any legal status.
He was arrested last month by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents but was released last week after Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif, intervened and asked ICE to defer action pending an appeal.
Sherman told the Los Angeles Times that it was in the nation's interest to allow Ferales to stay in the U.S.
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