I was brought here when I was 5 years old from the Dominican Republic along with my younger brother Erik. We have lived in New Jersey our entire lives. We both graduated from high school. My senior year of high school I was accepted to the College of William and Mary in Virginia. It was an amazing day for me and my family, but in the depths of my heart I knew that something was wrong. To be honest, I didn’t completely understand my family’s immigration status until it was time for me to go to college. I discovered that we all had come here (my father, mother, brother, and I) on tourist visas that had expired years before I was to go to college.

My grandfather, however, was naturalized as a citizen. So my father decided to apply for permanent residency through my grandfather and my brother and I would benefit as derivative beneficiaries of his application.  Everything was proceeding smoothly into my first semester of college. I was able to provide the administration at William and Mary with a valid alien registration number and we all felt we were on the right path. I knew though, for several reasons, that this would not be a long-term solution. My father had previously worked under a different name- as a necessity for survival.  I also felt that our expired tourist visas would raise eyebrows when our applications would be reviewed. However, those issues never came up.  My grandfather died before our applications for permanent residency could be approved. My grandfather was the only naturalized citizen in my immediate family and with his death also died our hopes for a legal path to citizenship. Any progress we had made was erased. Nothing was valid and we were trapped in immigrant purgatory.

I stayed at William and Mary trying to do my best not to give up. There were certainly times when I could have said f**k it and fly back to a country I with whom I had built a relationship through the Travel Channel. But I knew that a college diploma was very important to my mother and I was determined to grit through my mental struggle. So there I was, an undocumented Dominican kid from New Jersey trying to survive mentally and academically in Southeast Virginia. It was very hard for me to focus in class, I did not know if the course credits I was taking would count towards my life or if an ICE agent would storm through the door and cut short an economics lecture. Living in uncertainty can drive a young person to insanity and I applaud everyone of us who has kept their heads high through their own troubles.

I decided, however,  that I can either wait to get arrested and deported or I can be proactive and search for a solution. I started writing letters to immigration judges, lawyers, USCIS, senators, congressmen, and even to our previous president. I felt naive for a while believing that I would receive mail-order help. When there were dozens of letters I had a sliver of hope. When there were hundreds,, I felt abject disappointment. It was about to be my senior year in college, I had spent about two years searching for a solution, I had none, and I had no idea what I was going to do with myself. My mother had worked herself to exhaustion and all I could show for it was a diploma and a cloudy future.

The world really does work in mysterious ways though. Sometimes when you feel like you’re in inescapable abyss you’re really in an unlit hallway and someone just needs to turn on the lights. Around September of my senior year I got a phone call from a Section Manager at the USCIS office in Newark. She had read one of my letters (I had to ask her to read part of it because it could have been one of hundreds) and she wanted to help. We worked together for the entirety of my fall semester and we came to the conclusion that given the circumstances only option for myself and my brother was to apply for deferred action in the form of a letter to the District Director of USCIS. So I wrote one last letter…

We were granted deferred action this summer. I graduated from William and Mary in May. I am in the process of applying to law school. I did well on the LSAT, and scored in the 96 percentile. But I am starting to fear that these issues may prevent me from being admitted. I am starting not to care though.  I have my sights on schools like Yale, UChicago, Berkeley. But to be honest I am starting not to care. What will always be constant is that I am here on deferred action and until laws change, my future will be unstable. If there is a new appointment to District Director who knows if he will have the same opinion as the previous one and if he will decide to grant us deferred action when we re-apply this summer.

The only thing I can do is help others who are in the same situation. I wanted to write to you so you know that I am out here and that I am not scared. The story recently of the four Floridians marching towards Washington was inspiring.  We all have different paths but we have the same goal: a path to citizenship, and a future. Like I said, I am not scared and I want to help in whatever way possible. I am completely on board and I have several ideas of my own. I am completely available for mobilization and assistance. I think now is the time for us to come to light. We have to show those who are in hiding that there is nothing to be scared of. When they see our numbers they will be forced to listen. Once they listen they will be forced to change. Libertad para todos.