bostonglobe.com – Norma Torres Mendoza says she was reluctant to put her mother on a plane to Boston to attend her graduation ceremony at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government this week.

There was the fear, Mendoza said, that her mother, Carmen Torres, would be stopped by airport officials and possibly detained. Even worse? The thought of her mother being deported, she said.

“We didn’t want to take the risk of her being questioned,” said Mendoza of her mother, who is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico and lives in Texas.