Almost 14 years ago, I risked the life I had built for myself in the United States by coming out publicly as an undocumented immigrant.
This past Christmas, I took an even greater risk: To find my way to a stable legal status in this country, I had to leave the place I have called my home for over 30 years. I had no promise of being able to return.
In front of me was an opportunity I almost stopped hoping to find. For me, like many undocumented immigrants, immigration reform — on both a wide scale and a personal one — can seem impossible. On the campaign trail all year we heard endless plans that too often vastly oversimplified the reality of immigration. In this country, immigrants, with their complex, nuanced lives, have seen their stories flattened through misinformation and fear.
Those of us who try our best to navigate the legal system run up against arcane, sometimes nonsensical, even arbitrary rules. We need lawyers, friends and allies to help us.
I was born in the Philippines. When I was 12 my mother sent me to live with her parents, both naturalized U.S. citizens who lived in California. Under family petition laws, U.S. citizen grandparents can’t sponsor their foreign-born grandchildren. I later learned that my grandfather had paid a coyote to bring me to the United States. With the help of educators and mentors, I graduated from San Francisco State University and established myself in my career as a journalist. Over time I learned the limitations of my status: first when I applied for a driver’s license, and later when I applied for jobs.
I was a 20-year-old student when the Dream Act — which stands for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors — was first introduced in Congress in 2001. At least 20 versions of the legislation have since reached Capitol Hill. None have become law. Each has proposed a path to legalization for immigrants like me who were brought to the United States as children.
In 2012, under pressure from undocumented youths who organized and protested at his rallies, President Barack Obama announced Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an executive order protecting those called Dreamers from deportation and granting them two-year temporary work permits.
I was just over four months too old to qualify.
Against the counsel of several immigration lawyers, I wrote my story for The Times Magazine in 2011. I wanted to show readers the path of an undocumented person who came to this country as a minor, to put a face to the many undocumented people in the work force who are forced to exist at the margins of society.
Acknowledging my legal status was a risk. But what truly sank my chances at citizenship was revealing that throughout my young adulthood I lied to get employment: I checked off the “I-9” box, falsely claiming U.S. citizenship. That choice — made without thought or counsel — meant I found myself trapped in a legal cul-de-sac which greatly limited my options to change my status. I was ineligible for a work visa and would be ineligible for citizenship, even if I ended up marrying a citizen. That transgression seemed to have closed all doors.
The limbo I was stuck in persisted until this past summer, when the Biden administration announced a policy update: Undocumented immigrants with a college degree that was obtained in the United States and an employment-based visa could apply for a waiver, known as a D-3, to re-enter the country. In immigrant legal circles, D-3 is spoken of as a “godlike” waiver, excusing a wide range of grounds of inadmissibility to the United States. In short, lawyers told me, a D-3 waiver could allow me to work around the problems raised by my false claim to citizenship and give me a chance at finally becoming documented.
My most trusted friends urged me to pursue the waiver. My immigration lawyer proposed that I apply for what’s known as an O visa — a nonimmigrant visa for people who “have extraordinary ability or achievement” — along with the D-3 waiver.
It was, yet again, a gamble.
My O visa was approved on Dec. 13. The earliest appointment I could schedule was Dec. 26 — at the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana, Mexico.
On Christmas Day, less than 24 hours after my appointment was confirmed, I left the United States for the first time since 1993. Without approval of my D-3 waiver, I would be stuck in Mexico. I brought a stack of greeting cards with me to send to loved ones in the worst-case scenario. They read: “You are my home.”
In my consular interview, I answered everything honestly. I am 43 years old. I have spent 31 years living in America’s gray zone. This was my only shot — a complicated, unlikely shot — at living in the only country I have ever really known, with legal status. I brought with me every piece of documentation I had to show I have tried, throughout my life, to contribute to myself and this society. My college degree. Character testimonies. Tax forms.
Three days later, my D-3 waiver was approved. I was finally documented. That said, an O visa is not a green card. It does not make me a permanent resident. It does not directly put me on a path to U.S. citizenship. It is temporary — but it can be renewed.
As questions of who deserves to be in the United States and who we define as American take center stage, we have lost sight of how complicated it is to find a path to citizenship in this country and how many obstacles exist.
It took months and enormous resources, strategizing and support, just for me to get a work visa. I am just one man, and this is just one story. Consider now the estimated 11 million other undocumented people in America, how many hurdles they face and how little we support them. They don’t have my platform. Many haven’t had my chance at education. And, still: I nearly didn’t make it.
Complicated as it was, I couldn’t begin to chart a similar path for the next person. Immigrants are not a monolith.
Why do politicians treat us like one?
The post I Was an Undocumented Immigrant. I Beg You to See the Nuance in Our Stories. appeared first on New York Times.
