Not so long ago we took our children and my husband’s parents on a family vacation to New York City. It took us all day but we finally found it, the brick in the corner of the building on Ellis Island etched with the name of my husband’s grandfather. It was hard not to be proud of the legacy of this man who arrived on our soil at the age of sixteen with no money and few prospects. His grandson, my husband, is the first in the family to graduate from college and, in many ways, is the very embodiment of the American Dream that drew his grandfather here all those years ago. As I listen to the hullabaloo around undocumented immigrants, I think about my husband’s grandfather and ponder do any one of us have more of a right to the American Dream than any other?
It All Started Here
You might not have noticed it, but this past June President Obama quietly and significantly changed our country’s immigration policy. He issued an executive order commonly known as the “Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” or “Deferred Action” for short, allowing young undocumented immigrants the opportunity to receive work permits and protection from deportation for two years, with the possibility for renewal. Rather than hover on the perimeters, he gave them the right to become legal members of our society; legitimate participants, not watchers from the sidelines.
To be eligible, applicants must have lived in the U.S. since at least 2007, must have come here before they turned 16, be 30 or younger, be high school graduates or in college, or have served in the military, and they cannot have serious criminal records. If it sounds a lot like the Dream Act, it is. The big difference here is there is no formal path to residency. In many ways, this is just a buy. But it is a step, an important step, to finding a way to giving young people a chance to become legitimate contributors to our society.
People like Jose Antonio Vargas. You may have heard of him. He came to the United States at the age of twelve to live with his grandparents, permanent residents of our country. At sixteen, he learned he was here illegally. He hid his truth while he went to college, pursued a successful journalism career, and even won a Pulitzer Prize. Eventually, the pressure was too much and last year he “came out” as undocumented in a cover story in the New York Times. At 31, he has missed Obama’s Deferred Action deadline, but he is working to champion the rights of others like himself through his organization, Define American. In many ways, he has already achieved the American Dream and he isn’t even a citizen. While his dreams of legal documentation continue to be postponed, our country is better today because he is here.
To help others like Jose, California has launched it’s own mini-Dream Act. It offers undocumented high school students the chance to attend college by making them eligible for financial aid and scholarships. I think of my friend, Carmen (name changed to protect the innocent). She was born in Baja California, crossed the border holding her mother’s hand at the tender age of two, and has done everything she can to become a citizen of the only country she has ever known. An excellent high school student, she slaved away at her books while her mother cleaned houses. Her mother paid taxes, saved and bought a home, and together they worried about Carmen’s future.
Even though she was accepted at San Jose State University, Carmen couldn’t afford the tuition and worried that even if she tried to get aid, they would discover her doctored documents. She dreams of being a child psychologist. Instead of being in school these past few years, she has worked as a janitor at a pre-school – the closest she could get the children she so desperately wants to help. Now, she just might be one step closer to that dream, and I say, about darn time.
It is unclear what the future holds for these young people. What happens in two years when this first crop of deferred action applicants want to renew? If we have a different administration, will they be forced to go back into hiding? Or worse, be sent “back” to a country they’ve never known because now they are officially in the system?And what happens when Carmen graduates and she is saddled with the same debt many legal young Americans currently face? How will she repay it?
Sure there are unanswered questions, but they do not bely the underlying issue: being American is more than documentation. It’s about reaching for a dream and working as hard as one humanly can to achieve it. Rather than creating barriers to the dream, we should be creating opportunities to ensure as many members of our society can participate in meaningful and important ways. Because I believe Ellis Island is no longer just a place, it’s an idea whose time has come, again.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
I don’t have a problem with Obama’s mini-Dream Act. As minors, they really had no say in the choices their parents made. As a California resident, however, going to school part-time myself and with two daughters that will be going to school in a few years, I’m a little annoyed at CA’s version with the scholarships and financial aid. We have such a huge financial crisis going on with all of our education programs that I don’t necessarily love the idea of my daughters possibly missing out on opportunities because we’ve added yet more eligible students, but I can’t say I’m worked up enough about it for it to affect my vote.
While I’m embarrassingly undereducated on this issue, in reading both of these, I definitely see both sides. (And I’m grateful to each of you for that. I certainly hope that these people who have been told they’ll be able to stay in the U.S. will. BUT, if future administrations decide that President Obama did indeed overstep and send illegal immigrants back to their countries of origin, it seems that it will be President Obama’s fault for having given them false hope with a temporary executive order that was not properly made a law.
This is such a tough issue. How can you both be right and have different answers? I worked for several years in a high school that served many students without documentation. I saw a lot of talent wasted a lot of kids with dreams they simply could not make headway on–and kids that have been here so long they don’t speak their native language and so going back is not a great option (we explored it). But I was also angry with the parents for putting their children in such a situation, coming to the US through improper channels. However, for some if not many it was a matter of life or death (from Central America) or eating or not eating (from Mexico) and I, in the parent’s shoes, would have probably made the same decision to try and make the journey to give my children a chance at a better life or life at all.
I suppose in these types of situations I’m guided by what the kind (for lack of a better word as I’m not religious) thing to do is. And knee-jerk kindness is letting these kids stay and become citizens, no doubt, but then do you create a situation where because of that kindness illegal immigration swells to a point where we’d have to become even less humane about how we handle our southern border? Is having a border that people are willing to die to cross something we as humans feel comfortable having over the long term?
No easy answer. But I do feel more “kind” now that these kids have some hope of escaping their status as outlaws, even if it is hope given to people who come from families who broke the law.
As for Obama circumventing Congress, we seem to be discovering new gray areas of Executive privilege with every administration. What I’d really like is a Congress and White House that want to work together as opposed to pouring all of their resources into blocking reasonable ideas from the other side of the aisle all for the sake of a quick winning soundbite.
“What I’d really like is a Congress and White House that want to work together” – right back at you Rayme!
Thanks for reading and participating. Can’t wait to read your new book, The Angels Share.
Hi, Lisen. My great-grandparents immigrated from Europe. Like your husband’s parents, they came through Ellis Island. And they immigrated legally into the United States with the intention and desire to become citizens.
I can’t disagree with your arguments that our immigration policies need to be reformed, especially for people who were brought here illegally as children under no actions of their own. The examples you give are heartbreaking. When people break the law and bring children to our country illegally and then are not held accountable, the results can be devastating for those children.
It’s admirable your friend wants to remain in America, study, and become a child psychologist. A lot of young people have similar dreams for schooling but cannot afford tuition. I have a cousin who was accepted into an elite writing program in New York. Like your friend, his parents have worked hard, paid taxes, and contributed to their community. But he could not secure financing, so he could not go to New York. And he is an American citizen. Has he given up? No. He’s working to find the means to continue to pursue his dream. That’s part of being an American, too.
I hope your friend will continue to pursue her dream. I hope she understands American citizens are not to blame for her predicament, nor are we obligated to fix it for her. If she has an issue, she needs to first take it up with her mother who brought her here illegally. I also hope they will be brave and honest and use the channels available to bravely citizenship if they want to stay here.
Aimee
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