"After years of fearing she could be deported at any moment, immigration officials have granted a Houston middle school teacher a one-year reprieve.
Marie Baptiste, 30, said she was told just before Christmas by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials that she had been granted “deferred action” for one year, meaning they will not try and deport her during that time.
“I thank God,” said Baptiste, whose relatives brought her to the U.S. from Haiti when she was 9 years old. “We're a little bit less tense.”
Baptiste, now a middle school science teacher in Houston, said she didn't realize she was in the country illegally until she was about to graduate from high school. She went on to earn a degree from the University of Houston and then a teaching certificate."
