Op-ed from Yuna Oh, DACA recipient and political associate of America’s Voice highlights the importance of DACA as Democrats make legislative push to protect the program in lame duck session
Washington, DC- Yesterday, an op-ed from America’s Voice’s political associate and DACA recipient Yuna Oh was published in the Baltimore Sun, “Despite what judges say, America is my home”, in which she discusses the importance of the program and its positive effects on her life and the life of many Americans. She writes “Right-wing politicians’ incessant attempts to eliminate the DACA program are a constant reminder that, though I am Korean American, I will never be American enough for them..”
Key excerpts from the piece are included below:
“Last month, in a politically motivated decision, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the decade-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program unlawful, sending the case before it back to a lower court in Texas for review and putting my future in jeopardy. I am one of the hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients — Dreamers — many Republicans want to separate from their families, communities and homes.
[…] I have heard the tired but still devastating refrain that I should “just go back to where I came from.” But the truth is, the United States, not South Korea, is my home. America is all I know. I am American in all but the paperwork. Despite the proven successes of DACA, some politicians would still force me from my home and uproot me to a place I do not know. All of this because of a broken, outdated immigration system that has not been updated since before I was born, and continued Republican refusals to pass legislation resolving the status of people like me.
Right-wing politicians’ incessant attempts to eliminate the DACA program are a constant reminder that, though I am Korean American, I will never be American enough for them. To them, I am a permanent foreigner, even though some of my earliest memories are driving over the Bay Bridge with my family every summer for Blue Crabs doused in Old Bay and fishing at the Chesapeake Bay.
[…] I want to be a United States citizen. If Congress created a process where I could adjust my status, I would be the first in line. Congress can and must act so that my family — and your undocumented neighbors’ futures — are no longer in a permanent state of limbo and fear. And they should act now before the year is up.”
