I have the extreme privilege to attend SMU.  I am lucky to have been born in a country where  education is accessible and encouraged.  However, not everyone at SMU was born in the U.S.  Not everyone at our university comes from a country where education is accessible.  

Around the world, there are intelligent and hard-working human beings eager and qualified to attend higher education who simply cannot.  It is not a question of will or ability, but rather the country, gender, socio-economic class, culture and situations that they happened to be born into.

Included below is a letter written by a former University of Texas at Arlington student, Saad Nabeel, who came to the U.S. as a toddler and was schooled in the U.S. education system. 

Last year, despite recently being given permanent residency status, he was deported away from the one home he has ever known.  As a full scholarship student in engineering, his eagerness and ability for higher education cannot be questioned.  Despite this, Saad is not in the university.  He is in a place foreign to anything he has ever known.

I encourage every SMU student, faculty, and staff to read Saad Nabeel's letter and put yourself in his situation.  What would you do if you were, right now, sent to a country where you knew no one and could not speak the language?  What would you do if you could not come home for 10 years?

What is the U.S.'s responsibility to Saad?  He is a young adult without American citizenship now residing in the country of his birth.  However, he was educated as an American and grew up as an American.  America is his home.  

Last year, a piece of federal legislation called the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (or DREAM Act) was proposed to the Senate and House of Representatives.  The DREAM Act would allow certain illegal immigrant students who arrived in the U.S. as minors and have lived in the country continuously for five years conditional permanent residency to attend higher education in the U.S. or serve in the U.S. military.  

This Act was created for students in Saad's situation.  He did not make the decision to come to this country illegally.  He did not make the decision to be educated as an American.  He did make the decision to seek higher education and to follow the American dream.  There should be a system in place so that he can come home and live out this dream.

Jordan Johansen is senior history, music and anthropology triple major. She can be reached for comments or questions at jjohansen@smu.edu.