Milly: A Conversation on Faith and Immigration with a future DACA Pastor In Residence

Immigration MIC

Welcome Miluska Aquije @heavenlyhope87 to Immigration MIC, who’s here to live out her passion for sharing her story as a DACA- recipient from Peru and theology in practice as a future pastor in residence!

🔵Milly introduces us to her world of loving books and anime, her passion for being a mentor, the role intervarsity at Hunter College has played in her life, and always looking to give back.

🔴Her parents immigration stories from Peru, beginning with her father’s journey to the US on a ship crammed with seven other migrants.

⚫️How she and her mother were stopped by agents at the border and were released because she was a child, and later were held “captive” at a house in California until the full amount of money owed was paid off.

🔵Growing up in Greenpoint, New York, and finding out that she was undocumented when she was filling out a CUNY application.

🔴In 2007, Milly went through an extremely difficult time in her life, almost taking her own life, and soon after receiving a personal message from God in a church, which led her to a personal commitment to her faith, and using her story to provide light to others.

⚫️The challenges she faced as an undocumented college student, and how the support from faith community at her college helped her to deal with and overcome many of those challenges.

🔵The DACA announcement in 2012 for her was “one of the greatest joys for me, one of the greatest victories”, which coincided with her graduation from Hunter College.

🔴How she initially wanted to be a psychologist, but couldn’t receive a license due to documentation, which led her to a career in working with students in Higher Ed.

⚫️Her reaction of the 2016 election, and provides a theological/ historical analysis of the rising anti-immigrant sentiment in the US, and the role she’s looking to play in the future.