The United States is the ultimate goal for any immigrant who is seeking a better life. The US is better than many in almost every way in terms of job pay and availability and has a multitude of ways for adult immigrants to achieve citizenship, but there is a major group almost entirely excluded from these potential benefits: children of immigrants.

On June 15, 2012, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was signed into law by the Obama administration which opened numerous doors for children of immigrants who were born in a non- US country. DACA allows for children who were born outside of the US to obtain a sort of temporary citizenship that can be renewed every 2 years. This “temporary citizenship” allows for children to avoid being deported and allows them to legally attend public schools in the US

I came to the US in 2006 at the age of 7 . My mother and father had working visas in the US and my sister and I would  have to obtain special permissions to remain in the US .  This immediately horrified my parents as they did not want to send us back to our home country to live with family who we really didn’t have very close ties to.

My family scoured the internet and had several talks with attorneys to see what could be done to save me and my sister from being sent back to our home country but nothing could be done.  That was before we heard about DACA. When DACA was revealed as an option to potentially keep me and my sister in the US until we earned our citizenship, my family was ecstatic. The possibility of being able to stay in the US gave us so much hope

DACA is the only reason why I am able to remain a student in the US and to have all the opportunities that I have access to today.  It has truly opened a number of doors in my life but now it is in jeopardy of being removed. According to president Trumps recent comments ,“We’re going to work something out. On a humanitarian basis it’s a very tough situation. We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud.”, DACA is set to be replaced or removed at an unannounced time which leaves an estimated 11 million “Dreamers”(young people under DACA’s protection) waiting in suspense to see what will happen to them .

If DACA is removed, my life and the lives of thousands of immigrant children will change and we risk of losing many of the opportunities and blessings of living in the United States.

*The name of this article’s author has been withheld for personal safety reasons.