Woke gender studies student who's now in her ELEVENTH year of college is terrified Trump will deport her
A graduate student fears she won't be able to complete her 11th year of college in America because President Donald Trump might deport her.
Oriette D’Angelo, a doctoral student studying Spanish and Gender, Women and Sexuality studies at the University of Iowa, moved from her home country of Venezuela to Chicago in 2015 on a student visa.
The 34-year-old, who is also a professor, chose to flee her home of Lechería after she watched it decline and turn violent under the country's leaders Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013, and the current President Nicolás Maduro.
Although she's been in the US for years to seek academic and professional opportunities, D’Angelo is scared her dreams could soon be crushed by Trump's administration as he continues to crackdown on illegal citizens in America.
After finding out that her studies might come to an end, D’Angelo, who often writes poetry around themes of dictatorship for class, told friends she would mail Trump's administration notebooks of her work if she was forced to head back to Venezuela.
'It would be almost impossible to start over,' she told the Chicago Tribune.
'Venezuelans are being categorized as bad. But I want to stay here professionally. I want to finish my dissertation. I want to follow the right path,' D'Angelo, who is set to complete her doctorate in May 2026, added.
Over the years, D’Angelo has come face to face with immigration rules and guidelines, including when her Venezuelan passport expired in 2020.
Oriette D’Angelo, a doctoral student studying Spanish and Gender , Women and Sexuality studies at the University of Iowa, fears she might be deported by Donald Trump's Administration
The 34-year-old, who is also a professor, chose to flee her home of Lechería after she watched it decline and turn violent. (Pictured: University of Iowa)
She then applied for temporary protected status (TPS), which was introduced under former President Joe Biden to help citizens of countries stricken by war or natural disaster get temporary work.
Because consulate buildings were closed at that time due to Venezuela's shattered relationship with the US, she had to travel to Colombia to renew it, D’Angelo told the outlet.
When she came back to the US in November 2024, D’Angelo was processed under TPS, not her student visa, as she made her way through O’Hare International Airport.
She had officially lost her foreign student status even though her whole reason for moving to the US was for her to study.
In January, Trump's administration revoked her visa but she managed to get her hands on an international student visa in April after preparing documents and statements for her application.
She also went on to make a GoFundMe donation page to raise money for the hefty costs associated with the legal and processing fees.
The page is no longer active, as she chose to take it down amidst growing anxiety related to Trump's decisions.
Before it was removed, the page raised more than $10,000 to help her out, according to the Chicago Tribune.
In January, Trump's administration revoked her visa but she managed to get her hands on an international student visa in April after preparing documents and statements for her application. (Pictured: Trump Thursday)
'It was the longest month of my life,' she said, referring to March.
That same month, she also made a personal decision to marry her girlfriend Kayla Harder, but according to D’Angelo, they chose to do so because of their concern over federal attacks on LGBTQ rights, not because of immigration fears.
'With the current administration, we don’t know if same-sex marriage will still be legal in the next few years. We want to be together,' she explained.
With the money she raised, D’Angelo went on to submit an application for her international student status, and by mid-April, she was approved by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Thinking she was out of the woods for a bit, D’Angelo quickly realized her fight was not over.
Just about a month after she received her new status, the US State Department temporarily paused interviews abroad for foreign citizens applying for student visas.
'Survival mode is not over. Even though I have my student status back, I’m really not safe,' she stated.
Last week, Trump suspended Harvard University's foreign student visa program - banning any illegal immigrants from studying at the Ivy League.
TPS is no more in the US as the Supreme Court gave Trump the green light in May to strip it away from 350,000 Venezuelan migrants in a bid to speed up mass deportations.
He then went on to sign another executive order announcing a travel ban on 12 countries - Afghanistan, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
Now, she fears that funding for her program might be cut and she will have no choice but to head back to the South American country
The order also specified that citizens of Burundi, Cuba , Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela will be partially restricted from traveling, removing access to all immigrant visas and several non-immigrant travel options.
Now, she fears that funding for her program might be cut and she will have no choice but to head back to the South American country.
She's become cautious about what she posts online, as Trump's administration has vowed to keep a watchful eye on illegal migrants talking down about America on social media.
D'Angelo also worries her heavily tattooed arms could put her in danger as the current administration, along with other aspects, have been used as a signal to officials deporting migrants.
'It's getting very real,' she said, adding that poetry is one of the things that has kept her grounded through all the uncertainty.
The Biden Administration allowed Venezuelans to come to the U.S. under temporary protected status
Even when she lived in her home country, she would turn to poetry to escape the ongoing violence she saw in Caracas.
'It's impossible to fully describe what it was like. But that's also something that motivates me. It's part of everything I do,' she said.
In her poems, D'Angelo said she writes about gender-based harm - something she has personally experienced after she got involved with a professor at the age of 21 in what she claims was an abusive relationship.
She also publishes her writing online and is the founder and director of the literary magazine and the web-research project #PoetasVenzolanas, according to her school biography page.
