Biden proposes a path to citizenship. Some Dreamers have already bailed – By Sara Miller Llana (CS Monitor) / Feb 5 2021
One of the most enduring myths of opportunity is the American Dream. But some so-called Dreamers who were brought as minors to the U.S. are finding opportunity elsewhere.
Eun Suk Hong dreamed of attending an Ivy League school. It was the natural evolution for a child brought by his mother at age 10 to the U.S. from South Korea with his father’s words ringing in his ear: “We gave you this opportunity. Study hard. Listen to your mother.”
But no matter how hard Mr. Hong worked or studied, his immigration status in the U.S. was always in question. And when Donald Trump took power four years ago that nagging worry turned to near panic. He still remembers the day in September 2017, two years after he got a job in finance in New York, that the U.S. announced it would rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the Obama-era reprieve for millions of unauthorized immigrants like Mr. Hong who arrived in the U.S. as children.
“I was at work. I felt so cold. My hands were shaking,” he says. “I realized, oh my God, whatever I thought I had, it can be taken away, and it just was.”
So Mr. Hong did what his family had done, all those years ago: He looked for opportunities in another country, even though he knew that by leaving the U.S., he would be barred from re-entering the only country he knew. He applied, and got accepted to a high-ranked business school in Spain. “And I looked at my life in the States, which is filled with uncertainty … [in] a country that doesn’t want me.”
