What Happens to a Dreamer Deferred?
Comparing my experience as an immigrant to those who are undocumented
I became an American citizen through legal if unusual means. It wasn’t by right of birth. I was born in Perth, Western Australia. Neither was it through some significant financial investment as some do — a rather elite method of ingress I never hear folks complain about. Instead, I came into this country as an immigrant via more obscure means.
My parents immigrated to the United States in 1990 when my Aussie-born father was simply hired directly to a Baptist church in Greenville, South Carolina. This fundamentalist congregation was allowed to employ whomever they felt qualified due to a religious freedom clause in the immigration regulations. And that’s not limited to positions for ministers, but is available to anyone the church wishes to employ full-time. Technically, I was already in the United States studying for my undergraduate degree in broadcast journalism on a student visa. But I was under 21, so my parents could still petition for me to be granted a green card. And so they did shortly before my 21st birthday. Although it took some six years to process, while working as an English teacher in Pusan, Korea, I did secure my green card and officially immigrated to the United States.
