Immigration Reform in the Era of a Divided U.S. Supreme Court

Eighteen-year-old Rocío Mondragón Reyes stood quietly, a couple of steps apart from the crowd of pro-immigrant activists that had gathered in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. She was there Monday morning representing her parents, she said, who are undocumented.

“My parents constantly tell me and my siblings, ’I’m here for you guys, I’d love to be back in my home country where I don’t feel unwanted. But I’m here for you,’” she says. They have taken risks, made sacrifices, and worked incredibly hard, she adds, to offer her a chance at an “American dream” to which they themselves had no access. And it’s paid off. She’s a freshman at Georgetown University studying culture, politics, and Latin American studies. After she graduates, she hopes to go to law school. “I’m a project of [my parents’] values,” she says.