Immigration

Billy Binion | 7.8.2024 6:00 AM

Roshan Taroll says his mother, Beena Preth, brought him to the United States as a child in hopes he would put his nose to the grindstone and shoot his shot at accessing the bounty of opportunity uniquely offered by America. He will not have the chance.

The irony lies in why.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, instituted during President Barack Obama's administration, protects people from deportation if they arrived in the U.S. unlawfully as children through no fault of their own. Many of those individuals do not meaningfully know any other country but the U.S. as home.

Taroll shares the latter part in common with DACA recipients. But his story diverges from theirs in a crucial way: His family didn't come here illegally.

In 2008, Taroll arrived in the U.S. as a 10-year-old with his father, younger brother, and Preth, his mother, who had secured a job in the States at a tech company on an H-1B visa. He subsequently became a "Documented Dreamer": the same moniker given to DACA recipients, except with a twist. Core to being a "Dreamer" under DACA's purview is that they are undocumented, so Taroll didn't qualify for the protection provided by the program—not in spite of coming to the U.S. legally, but because of it.

There are approximately 250,000 Documented Dreamers who came to the U.S. lawfully as children but face self-deportation if their parents cannot help them get them a green card, or if they cannot find another visa, before they age out of dependent status at 21 years old. One typical reaction: These migrants must not have done their due diligence in trying to obtain permanent residence; they came here as kids, so they had plenty of time.

It's a core misconception that obscures how topsy-turvy the U.S. immigration system is. It can take decades—or more—to get through the green card application process, thanks to stratospheric wait times wrought by country-of-origin caps.

The federal government allots approximately 140,000 employment-based green cards annually. But each country can nab a maximum of 7 percent of those in a........

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