Jacqueline Garcia Morales will graduate in the Yukon.

Last month, the Mexican-born mother of two received word from Citizen and Immigration Canada that she would have to leave Whitehorse, and the country, by the end of the April.

Garcia has lived, worked and studied here for 2 1/2 years and is just months away from earning her high school diploma from F.H. Collins Secondary School.

She has been fighting to stay since last year, when her application for refugee status was rejected by the immigration department. An appeal to the Federal Court of Canada - launched by the entire Morales clan, almost 20 of whom were living in Canada - failed early this year.

With that, several members of the family returned to Mexico, but Garcia refused to give up.

Earlier this month, Garcia told the Star she came to Canada so her boys, three-year-old Marshall and five-year-old Joshua, could grow up in a safer place with more opportunities for education and work.

The three came here from Mexico City. The 22-year-old single mom said she is determined not to go back to a place where she fears her sons will grow up too close to vandalism and violence.

"It's my country," she said of Mexico, "but I'm realistic, and I know this place is more secure for them."

And this is where she will stay, at least until July 1, the end of the school year for both her and Joshua, who is in Kindergarten.

"I feel happy because I got to this stage," she said today, "but still I feel worried about what will happen with my humanitarian application."

She credits her lawyer, Colleen Harrington, for the two-month repreive.

Harrington sent a letter to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney explaining that Garcia is fewer than 10 weeks away from graduating with a Canadian high school education, and that going back to Mexico would effectively prevent her from graduating at all.

A humanitarian application is now Garcia's last-ditch effort to stay in Canada permanently, but she could very well be sent back to Mexico on June 1 to await the minister's decision on that application.

"I don't want to think about that," she said of the possibility of having to return to Mexico. She said she wants to start working toward a degree in social work at Yukon College next semester.

Garcia's mother and sister are also applying for permission to stay, but they have not yet been granted an extension, Garcia said. Her mother recently married a Whitehorse man and is applying to stay as a sponsored immigrant.

The three women have garnered public support from their co-workers at a local Subway shop, students at F.H. Collins and members of the social justice committee at Sacred Heart Cathedral.

Several petitions on their behalf have been circulated around the city.

The signatures, more than 50 pages' worth, were delivered to Yukon MP Larry Bagnell's office last week and forwarded to Kenney on behalf of the constituents.