Please let me stay in America

As a proud New Yorker originally from Kosovo, I make up my own unique part of the United States’ story. As a DACA recipient living life in two-year increments, the fight for a pathway to citizenship is as personal as it gets. Now, I’m counting on Congress to help ensure I can continue contributing to the city and country that I love.

My story begins like many families’: We sacrificed everything to find safety in America. In 1997, Kosovo was on the brink of war, and attacks on Kosovar Albanians by Serbian forces were ramping up.

I was only a little kid, and several of my preschool friends and classmates had fallen ill after my school’s water system had been poisoned. My parents made the difficult decision to leave home so we could survive, and we arrived in the U.S.

Growing up in the U.S. is the only life that I remember. While I had a fairly typical childhood, the older I got, the clearer it became that growing up undocumented — without any protections — raised the stakes for me. Throughout high school, I watched silently as friends got their driver’s licenses, applied to the universities of their choosing, and voted in the 2008 election. However, I never felt the true threat my undocumented status represented until my senior year. During the first week of the school year, ICE agents raided our apartment; our family was arrested and ordered to be supervised. I remember going home after being released from detention, having to face neighbors and friends who had witnessed the raid, feeling deeply embarrassed.

I also remember the first time in my life that my dreams started to become real again, like a light at the end of a dark tunnel: Then-President Obama introduced special protections for people like me, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, during the beginning of my senior year in college. I received a Social Security number and a New York State ID.

I was no longer a ghost in the system, but a person in America who had some rights. DACA changed my life, and gave me — alongside 700,000 other Dreamers — the ability to contribute more fully to the communities we had been raised in. I began to dream about becoming a lawyer and dedicating my career to advocating for people like me, my family and countless others. I knew then, as I still do, that if millions of others like me were given a real chance, they, too, would run with the opportunity.

Immigrants like me come to the U.S. in search of living freely and contributing to the communities we now call home — but the U.S. failed and outdated immigration policies trap us in undocumented status, unable to contribute to our full potential, and forcing us to live in the shadows. While DACA has been a lifeline for me and other young people like me, it is fragile and a temporary fix that perpetuates the constant limbo in which undocumented people are forced to live.

It’s up to Congress to pass legislation that would include a true and lasting solution for undocumented individuals and families.

In fact, legislation that some members of Congress have already proposed would allow approximately 9.3 million undocumented immigrants to earn U.S. citizenship.

This would account for 93% of the total undocumented population, including essential workers like my dad who have kept all of us safe throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Dreamers who came to U.S. as children (including those with DACA and those without), undocumented people who have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade, those with U.S. citizen family members and others who receive protection from deportation on a temporary basis.

We are all living with our lives hanging in the balance.

Whatever the avenue, Congress must do its job and use all means available to pass meaningful reforms this year. A pathway to citizenship is not only what immigrants deserve or morally right, it is a critical part of America’s ongoing recovery from the pandemic and is absolutely imperative for the United States to continue its status as a global economic leader.

I have overcome every obstacle thrown my way and have used my background to motivate me. I earned my bachelor’s degree from City University and my master’s degree from New York University. This fall, I’ll attend Rutgers Law on a scholarship to pursue my dream of becoming an attorney. My desire for a better life is the same desire as millions of others. Only a pathway to citizenship passed by Congress can get us there.