I come here today to share my story because of this bottled up rage and fear that no one but a true DREAMER can feel.

I recently had a scare where federal officials, including 2 ICE officers, where in search of a person in my building at work. we were warned that they were in the building and we immediately locked the doors and turned off the lights, for fear it might be a raid. Ive never experienced fear like that day. Its the fear you will be sent to a country where you don’t know a soul, you don’t know where to go, and you have no money to survive. I am an American. Ive been an American since i was a year old and my mother brought me on her back across the border, in search of a better life for her children.

All my life I have been pressured to excel and do good in school.  My senior year was when I discovered that i had no legal status in the US, in other words i didn’t exist. It was when i was granted several scholarships and grants and letters from different colleges across Florida as a result of my 4.2 GPA I had when i graduated. But when i needed to fill out applications and citizenship information, i realized i had nothing. No Social Security number, no resident card, no Id, no legal status.

All i could do is cry. Why was it that i should be punished for my parents mistakes. Why was it that all my friends where going to different universities and moving to different places while i stayed here. and all my hard work for nothing. i was in limbo.

So i found a job under the table where i could at least do something to survive. I escalated the corporate ladder and now am an administrator for a corporation that manages many restaurants.

After a year working i decided to fight my way back to school, so i did it.  I applied and found all the loopholes in the system that would allow me to enter the college and at least got some private grants that don’t require you citizenship status. It wasn’t easy, I am trying the best to become a registered nurse but I know eventually i will not make it past the legal system.

My brother married in 2000 and got his citizenship by luck with the 245I law. but its too late for me.

I am married to the love of my life, who is an American born Citizen, but because of the way I came into the country (without inspection), there is no chance of fixing my legal status unless that 245I law is passed again or the DREAM ACT is passed.  I still stand in limbo, with a suspended ID and no chance for a drivers license, with no social security and in the same dead end job that has abusive hours and abusive rates.  I have to put up with everyone’s $#!8 because if i don’t, I don’t stand a chance at finding another job.

I pray every night that some justice will be brought to my life. To everyone who has to live the same injustice as I.

I pray for all those young Americans that are more American than those who were born here and that work hard just to live a better life without doing harm to the country that has served as a home base for them.

We are the future of this country, yet they wont let us excel.

We are what could make this economy better if the let us live normal lives and not make us live like we are criminals, running from the law because it has placed side on the opposite side of the balance.

What I do know is that our parents, for as many mistakes they have made, have thought us good morals and hard work. We should be grateful that they instilled in us the values that we need to move forward and make I through this crisis with our heads held high.

We are not criminals, we are Americans!