Fredi gets reprieve from deportation

Fredi Alcazar Dominguez shouted and cried with joy this week when he got the letter in the mail saying he had been granted a special reprieve from deportation.

Dominguez, whose harrowing story was featured this month in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Personal Journeys series, has been accepted into the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The south Cobb County resident may now legally remain and work in the U.S. for two years and apply for a two-year renewal of his deportation deferral.

In 2009 — on the day of his senior prom at Pebblebrook High School — Dominguez was arrested after a minor traffic accident. The government detained him for nearly two months before deporting him to Mexico, a place he hardly knows. Dominguez risked his life to return, floating on a raft across the Rio Grande and then riding on top of a truck from Laredo, Texas, to New Orleans.