CANADIAN DREAM
‘ Dreamers’ who saw no future in Trump’s America found new freedom and security in Canada. Now, Trump is on his way out, but they’re here to stay
As a young teenager, Karen Hernandez left Guatemala with her family to seek a better life in the United States.
Two decades later, it was the same motivation that led her to move, this time legally, to Canada.
A so- called American “Dreamer” — someone who’s lived, undocumented, in the United States since they were a minor — the now 32- year- old made the hard decision to leave her parents and siblings behind and moved to an unknown Vancouver as a skilled immigrant in 2019.
In doing so, she became one of the many non- status American youth to flee the prospect of being deported under President Donald Trump’s administration over the past four years.
Hernandez says today she can finally breathe freedom.
“I did not feel American because every day I was reminded I didn’t belong. I loved the U. S. It gave me all the opportunities that I probably wasn’t going to find in Guatemala. I spent so much time in the U. S. and my heart is still where my family is,” said Hernandez, who was brought to the U. S. at age 11.
“But once you have a taste of this new life of freedom, I wouldn’t like to go back to how things were before.”
That holds true for her even after the election victory of Democratic presidentelect Joe Biden, who has promised to reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals ( DACA) program.
( As of Dec. 7, U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had reopened the DACA program.)
The initiative, rolled out by former president Barack Obama in 2012 but scrapped by Trump, granted Dreamers temporary U. S. residence and work permits that had to be renewed every two years. ( The term “Dreamers” refers to another piece of U. S. legislation, the never- passed DREAM Act, which promised a pathway to legal immigration status.)
“Everybody thinks that the U. S. is the only place where dreams can come true,” said Hernandez. “To be honest, I’m not too optimistic if things will change with Biden. Obama promised the same ( citizenship pathway) that he didn’t do. I’m not sure if Biden would do much other than continue the DACA program.”
That sentiment and the discovery of a successful life outside the U. S. is shared by other undocumented youth participating in a documentary project by Immigrants Rising, a San Francisco- based support group for undocumented students.
The documentary video series, called “Life Outside the U. S.: Transcending the American Dream,” features the experience of former non- status youth who left the U. S. in despair to find success in other countries, including Canada.
“For so long, we have relied on the narrative that the U. S. is the mecca for people from all over the world, that it’s the only place people ever dream of coming to,” said Katharine Gin, who co- founded the group in 2006 and leads the project with Beleza Chan and Alejandro Espinoza.
“We need to have new narratives that don’t have the U. S. be the singular destination and that don’t make people feel they are trapped here … There are options. What they’ve been able to accomplish and who they are as human beings can be valued elsewhere.”
It’s not known how many of the 40,000- plus who moved to Canada as permanent residents from the U. S. over the past four years had been undocumented there. However, Canadian immigration data shows non-Americans now make up 85 per cent of the applicants from south of the border, up from 48 per cent in 2015.
Raised in Palo Alto, Calif., by her parents — her father a mechanic and mother a domestic cleaner — Hernandez said she didn’t know she had no legal status in the U. S. until she was a high school junior. She applied to college but couldn’t get financial aid because of her lack of status.
Fortunately, she got a private scholarship to attend Santa Clara University. Despite an undergraduate degree in economics, she ended up doing volunteer work and babysitting to help pay bills because she was undocumented and couldn’t work legally.
“It was frustrating. It was depressing. I couldn’t do anything with my education. My hope was we’re going to have a president who eventually was going to help us get something and provide us with a pathway to citizenship,” said Hernandez.
“I kept doing volunteer work because I needed to put something on my resumé. It was very difficult. After everything you’ve worked for, you don’t have that opportunity to use your degree.”
In 2012, the Obama- Biden administration launched the DACA program, which became her saviour, briefly.
“It’s life- changing. That’s when I got my work permit. I went back to school for my master’s degree in global health sciences,” recalled Hernandez, who later got a job as a data analyst at a university.
But that promised pathway to citizenship never got past the Republican- majority Senate, and Dreamers were stuck with only temporary status as long as they didn’t leave the country.
In 2016, when Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election, Hernandez knew her days in the U. S. were numbered. One of the first moves Trump made was to end the DACA program.
“You started thinking, ‘ I can’t go back to the pre- DACA days.’ Once you got a taste of what freedom felt like, even though it was very limited still with the DACA program, it became very difficult to imagine your life going backward,” Hernandez said.
She began exploring her options to relocate to another country but first she had to convince her husband, Francisco Sanchez, 34, who came to the U. S. from Mexico as a teenager and was a DACA recipient as well.
Canada seemed to be a viable option, given it shared the same language and a similar culture, and Vancouver was ideal because of its proximity to her family in California. Still, it was a tough decision.
“We are a very close family. It was going to be the first time I was going to be away from my parents for so long. I knew once Ileft the States, I wasn’t going to be able to come back. I didn’t know how long it’s going to take for me to see my family again,” said Hernandez.
“And it was hard. When my parents first moved to the U. S., they lost their parents. My grandparents passed away and my parents weren’t able to see them. So my biggest worry has always been if there’s an emergency, I’m not going to be there.”
She was also anxious about whether she was going to be successful in Canada, a country she had never been to, but she really couldn’t see a future for herself in the U. S.
With her high education achievements, she applied for permanent residence in Canada under the federal skilled worker program and settled in Vancouver in January 2019.
The dreary Canadian winter and being separated from family didn’t make the transition any easier. Once she landed in Canada, it hit her that she had just left her entire life behind and there was no way back.
“I couldn’t fathom the fact that a country so great like Canada would accept someone like me. In the States, every day I was told I didn’t belong to that country. It’s pretty traumatizing,” said Hernandez, who knew only two people in Canada, both here under the same circumstances as her.
“I didn’t realize other countries, like Canada, would offer more opportunities for immigrants. When you come, they welcome you with open arms. That’s pretty nice.”
It took her husband a couple of weeks to find a job back in the hotel industry and five months for Hernandez to secure her employment in the health- care sector as a program co- ordinator.
“I feel I have freedom now. I don’t have to worry about status anymore. I can go anywhere Iwant to. We don’t have to look
over our shoulder every time, worrying about being stopped and getting deported,” said Hernandez, who flew with Sanchez to Mexico at Christmas 2019 to visit his family for the first time in years.
“Life after the U. S. is pretty great. I made the right decision coming here. My husband and I are pretty happy where we live and with our work. We’re happy with the opportunity we have here and the way people treat us … I’m used to the rainy days now.
“I just go about my things like everyone else. I’m considered another Canadian. It doesn’t feel like I’m at someone else’s house. That’s how I felt in the States, that I was invading someone else’s space.”
Eddie Fernandez had lived undocumented in the U. S. since he moved there with his mother from Mexico when he was 14. He always tried to stay out of the way of law enforcement for fear of being caught and deported. So, it was nerve- racking as he approached the Canadian border at Windsor at 2 a. m. on July 17, 2018, with his American husband, Tyler Thom, in a giant U- Haul truck filled with their belongings.
He was so relieved after an officer stamped his passport, declaring him a Canadian permanent resident, that he asked if he could take a selfie at the border to remember this “significant moment” in his life. Instead, the officer and his colleagues came out from their booths to pose with the couple.
“I asked if I could take a selfie and they all came outside. They were just super nice,” Fernandez recalled with a chuckle. “As soon as we crossed the border, Tyler and I didn’t have to worry about being apart anymore. If we had stayed in the U. S., I felt one day I would be deported and we would be apart.”
Fernandez, 34, and Thom, 32, an American citizen, met in Milwaukee in 2014 and the two got married the next year. Although Fernandez had DACA status, his spousal application in the U. S. was denied because he was alleged to have misrepresented himself as an American when he first arrived at O’Hare airport in Chicago in 2002.
That meant he was barred from permanent residency in the U. S.
After seeking legal advice, the couple had few options, but decided to have Thom apply to immigrate to Canada with Fernandez as his dependant spouse. Neither had ever been to this country.
As soon as they got their permanent resident visas, Thom flew to Toronto alone in May 2018 to open bank accounts, sign the lease on an apartment and set up their new life here. He also double- and triplechecked with Canadian officials at Pearson airport to ensure someone undocumented in the U. S. could still be a legal resident in Canada.
“I remember being on an airplane flying to a country I’ve never seen, have never been to,
thinking, ‘ The second I land down, I’m going to be a permanent resident there.’ It’s so exciting. I’m so appreciative to be here,” said Thom, who works in education administration.
“But I had a lot of anger toward my own country because we were pushed out of the U. S. We’re very thankful to Canada. They accepted us. I was more excited to come to Canada than Iwas sad to leave the U. S.”
Back in Milwaukee, Fernandez had his own company with 50 employees, doing housekeeping jobs for hotel chains. Through his contacts there, he managed to quickly find a job in a top Toronto hotel. And Thom, after working remotely for a year for his old employer, found ajob at the University of Toronto.
Being uprooted from friends and family was not easy, but it’s been worth it, they say.
“I don’t have to deal with these crazy things about being pulled over and getting deported. It’s so peaceful here. We love Toronto and we feel safe here,” said Fernandez, who in 2018 flew to visit Mexico with Thom for the first time since leaving his homeland as a young teen.
The couple were following the U. S. presidential election closely and for a short moment did ponder the possibility of moving back when Biden was declared the president- elect. But there’s too much to love about Canada, they say.
“Even if we could wave a magic wand and go back to the U. S., with legal status and none of the worries we had, would we do that? No. Overall, our quality of life and happiness is so much higher here,” said Thom.
“I cannot see myself going back to the U. S. even under Barack Obama, who I love, or even under any Democratic president.”
After years living in the U. S., banking on the hope of getting permanent residency one day, Sadhana Singh, 34, who is Guyanese, and her Haitian husband, My Ford Noel, 35, were exhausted.
When Trump moved to phase out the Temporary Protected Status ( TPS) program that was designed to offer temporary stay for foreign nationals affected by armed conflicts and natural disasters, the couple knew they needed to find a new home.
Their assets were their education achievements and work experience — hers in communication and his in logistics and management.
“We had our degrees, but we felt really limited and restricted. We wanted to move beyond our status. We didn’t want to have these roadblocks anymore,” said Singh, who moved to Georgia with her family in 1999 and was a DACA recipient.
“Once Trump ended TPS, My Ford initiated this idea of moving to another country. We were willing to relocate to a place that valued our education and our skills, and valued what we can bring to the country and would give us a chance to progress.”
The couple wanted to buy a house together and raise a family — things their tenuous status in the U. S. simply didn’t allow.
Noel started applying for jobs all around the world and an offer for a supply chain manager came from a Mississauga food company in late 2018. He arrived on a work permit in January 2019 and was joined by his wife in June.
“We were ready for a change. We were really exhausted being on this roller- coaster with American immigration,” said Singh, who works remotely to help undocumented youth in the U. S. attend college.
“At that point, we didn’t want to be in America anymore. When we got our ( Canadian) visa and passports back, it was major relief. We felt like, ‘ Wow, we really had options and we really had a place we could go.’ ”
She felt the difference the moment her flight landed in Toronto.
“Once I got to Toronto Pearson and got cleared, I really felt I was 100 pounds lighter. This burden was lifted from me that Iwas carrying for so long in the U. S., because now, even though it’s just a work permit, I felt there’s a way for me to advance myself.”
Just being able to be in her own skin was a refreshing change from her old life in the shadows in Snellville, Ga., where she and her brother grew up hiding their status from everyone outside the family, struggling with anxiety and depression.
She had to find excuses not to do sports and other extracurricular activities because she didn’t have health insurance and legal status. Known by her friends as book- smart and gifted, she had to lie to them, pretending she was applying for colleges.
“I was always living, like, close to the gate but actually not going into the park. I was always living on the outside of where my American friends were. That was really hard,” said Singh.
“For 20 years, that’d been my life. Being in America but not being able to participate.”
Even after she started working as a lab technician, she continued a life in isolation. She felt she couldn’t drive, go to bars with friends or even have a date because she was undocumented and was ashamed of her status.
In 2012, with the launch of DACA, she could finally get an ID, be legally employed and be protected from deportation. But a college education was out of her financial reach until two years later, when she was awarded a newly created scholarship for DACA youth. She became a university freshman at 28.
Singh said she immediately felt welcomed by Canada, especially the South Asian and Caribbean communities in her new home of Brampton.
“I’m learning at 34 how to actually show up as myself and not have to pretend. I just feel secure. Getting an Ontario driver’s licence and seeing it has five years on it is momentous. I can shake off all these things I was carrying and finally see myself here, make plans and talk about the future,” said Singh, who has already applied for Canadian permanent residency with Noel.
“We want people to know they don’t just have to look at the U. S. as their only option. They can make a life elsewhere. That’s possible.”
Back in Vancouver, Hernandez says she no longer labels herself a “Dreamer,” not in legal terms anyway.
“I am no longer undocumented and don’t have the same limitations as before. It feels like I’m ‘ stealing’ the word by using it now,” she said.
“What I hope to do next is to travel around the world. Meet new people and see new places, enjoy doing all the things I was not allowed to do before. That is my dream now.”