I’m an undocumented immigrant from Canada. Obama’s new policy doesn’t do enough to protect families like mine.
Obama’s immigration policy should prioritize undocumented immigrants who have paid taxes and worked for legal residency.
By Leezia Dhalla November 21 Leezia Dhalla is an executive communications specialist for an IT company based in San Antonio, Texas. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science from Northwestern University in 2012.
I remember learning the words to the Pledge of Allegiance on my first day of school in the United States. In the two decades since, I’ve interned with the U.S. House of Representatives and studied political science at Northwestern University. Now I work at a technology company, often wearing a pair of rugged cowboy boots and speaking with a slight Texas twang.
And every day, I live in fear of deportation.
The Department of Homeland Security sent me a letter in 2010, when I was a college junior, demanding that I appear in immigration court. Before then, I had no idea I was one of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. My family moved here from Canada legally when I was 6.
On Thursday, President Obama announced executive action that offers a temporary shield from deportation to more than 4 million undocumented immigrants. My family isn’t among them. Obama’s order allows the immigrant parents of U.S.-born and permanent resident children to apply for work permits. But it overlooks many parents who came to the U.S. legally with their young children and have been struggling to become permanent residents for years.
I’m not the kind of person most people think of when they discuss immigration policy – but I’m just as affected. My parents moved our family from Canada to the United States in 1996 with a visa. Within a year, we received an investor visa, issued for at least two years to entrepreneurs who want to purchase and operate a small business. In Alberta, my parents struggled to keep food on the table. In the United States, it would be easier for them to start a business and build a stable life for their children. We settled in San Antonio and my father opened several small businesses. My mother became a PTA parent.
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