Source: UCSD News Center

Photo:  Graduate Leon Sanchez Reyes (left) with his sister and two younger brothers.

June 14, 2018 (San Diego) --This year, UC San Diego’s class of 2018 will be having the majority of commencement ceremonies on Saturday, June 16 and Sunday, June 17.  A total of 7,449 students will take the stage this weekend as this year’s graduating class participates in the campus’ various commencement ceremonies. Among the students is Leon Sanchez Reyes  Just two weeks before starting his first year at UC San Diego in 2014, Sanchez Reyes’ parents were deported. The immigration agents explained to him that his parents were going to be sent back to Mexico and nothing could be done about it.

“I felt abandoned and full of anger. Not at my parents, not at the officers—they were only doing their job—but at the system for leaving four children without their parents,” said Sanchez Reyes. The next night, Sanchez Reyes and his siblings met with their parents in Tijuana, discussing schooling and housing plans. Sanchez Reyes had secured housing on campus for his first year, but his parents and siblings had to relocate to Tijuana and then Rosarito.