She was about to graduate USC when her DACA status was threatened. What happened?
Editor’s note: We caught up with the most interesting people we wrote about in 2018. Learn what’s new with each this week.
Maria Garcia Riopedre wasn’t sure she would be here a year ago.
The Mexican-born, S.C.-raised USC student was a semester away from graduating when President Donald Trump announced plans to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that allows young immigrants like her to work and study in the U.S.
“I put in so much money, so much effort, my family put in so much money and so much effort, and I didn’t know if I would be able to graduate,” she said. “But if that happened, then good things are going to keep on happening, so I just have to work and keep on going.”
A court challenge indefinitely extended an announced March shutdown of the DACA program. Garcia Riopedre graduated in the spring. She and fiance Jaime Ortega have operated West Columbia’s Catitude Cat Cafe for more than a year now, with four employees.
In addition to the cat cafe — which has adopted out 61 feline guests this year, on top of the 20 inside its State Street storefront — Garcia Riopedre has worked for the last five months as the social media and marketing coordinator for the nonprofit, SC Thrive.
The group offers help with everything from Medicaid sign-up to tax prep, with which Garcia Riopedre is training to assist.
“My degree is in visual communication, and I have a job where I get to do everything I studied,” she said.
She and Ortega are planning their wedding next year, and want to renovate Catitude to make it more handicapped accessible.
But she knows she’ll have to reapply for DACA in September, and the long-term future of the program is still unclear. No legislation has been passed that would offer permanent legal protections for immigrants like her.
“It’s still just constantly stressful,” she says. “But I plan as if everything is going to continue to be fine... I really want to see how big I can make (the cafe), so I want to stay here for a while.”
This story was originally published December 27, 2018 at 5:00 AM.
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