Yatta Kiazolu is a young, Ph.D. student at the University of Southern California who has a big red question mark over her future. Here are 8 things we need to know about Yatta Kiazolu:
- Yatta Kiazolu is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Southern California (who got accepted without cheating), she is 28 years old and is set to receive her doctorate in History this fall.
- She has been threatened with deportation to Liberia due to President Trump end the DED program.
- Kiazolu was born in Botswana and her parents are Liberian. She’s been in the United States since she was 7 years old under the DED program. Her parents sent her to live with her grandmother in 1997 in Decatur, Georgia.
- She has applied for citizenship twice. Even her grandmother, who was a U.S. Citizen, applied on her behalf, but her grandmother passed away for they could process the application.
- DED (Deferred Enforced Departure) means she can study and work in the United States. It allows immigrants to stay within a nation for a designated period of time and Liberia has been under designation since 1991.
- President Trump has decided to end the DED designation on March 31st; he began dismantling DED last spring because he believes Liberians don’t need protection from the U.S. any longer.
- Kiazolu spoke in front of the House Judiciary Committee on March 6, 2019, as a plaintiff fighting for her right to live in the U.S.
- In a statement to the House she said these words:
“My grandmother use to say, ‘When you do good, you don’t do it for yourself – you do it for God.’ And with that philosophy as my personal mantra, though the majority of my family are not permanent residents and U.S. citizents, I’m here for all working-class immigrants on DED, TPS and who are also Dream-eligible. I’m here for all young people like myself who have anxiety about their futures.”
Syllabus Magazine, the Carolina’s source for Music, Culture and Fashion
