Yves Gomes

Maryland

Yves Gomes

1. How old were you when you came to the United States? Tell us a little about when you first realized that you were undocumented and what that meant for you.

I was a year and a half old when I came to the U.S. in 1994. I remem­ber that through­out my child­hood, my par­ents were fight­ing our asy­lum case. So, unlike a lot of oth­er immi­grant fam­i­lies who are “undoc­u­ment­ed,” my par­ents were allowed to work because they had applied for asy­lum. At least they were until 2006, when our asy­lum case was denied.

Grow­ing up, I always thought I was Amer­i­can. My par­ents always told me, “Before you go to bed, pray to God that we get a green card,” but I did­n’t know what that meant. Then, I remem­ber walk­ing into my house one beau­ti­ful day after school and see­ing the look on my par­ents’ faces. They looked deject­ed. They said, “Our case is denied, look what came in the mail.” Even then, I did­n’t real­ly get it, until my par­ents had to give up their jobs. My moth­er could no longer be a pro­fes­sor at North­ern Vir­ginia Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege and work on her Ph.D. in Com­put­er Sci­ence. She had to quit her job, stay home and vol­un­teer. My dad could no longer be a serv­er at the Hilton Crowne Plaza in D.C.; he had no choice but to work under the table in order for us to sur­vive. I even remem­ber one time that my dad asked my lit­tle broth­er if he could bor­row mon­ey from his pig­gy bank. It was real­ly hard for all of us.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, things did not get eas­i­er. In 2008, my father was stopped by the police on his way home from work because he had a blown tail light. After run­ning his infor­ma­tion through the sys­tem, they learned that he was undoc­u­ment­ed. Though my father came home that night, a week lat­er he was torn from us. August 9, 2008 was the last time I saw my father. ICE offi­cers raid­ed my fam­i­ly’s home in Mary­land and took my father to a deten­tion cen­ter. He was deport­ed back to Bangladesh that year. With the help of an attor­ney, my moth­er was allowed to stay anoth­er year to set­tle her affairs before she was also deport­ed. How­ev­er, she was required to wear a track­ing device around her ankle as a con­di­tion of being allowed to remain in the U.S.

It was so upset­ting to see my moth­er being treat­ed like an ani­mal with this device attached to her. When my moth­er was deport­ed back to India in 2009, I felt a true sense of loss, know­ing both my par­ents were gone. My broth­er and I could not even be com­fort­ed know­ing that our par­ents were togeth­er because they were not. My fam­i­ly had been torn apart across three sep­a­rate coun­tries, with my moth­er in India, my father in Bangladesh and me and my broth­er in the U.S.

2. What have been the biggest barriers for you in achieving your dreams because of your undocumented status? How has DACA changed that? 

Despite the immea­sur­able pain of hav­ing my par­ents tak­en away from me, I was incred­i­bly lucky to grow up in a sup­port­ive and nur­tur­ing com­mu­ni­ty in Mary­land. After my par­ents’ depor­ta­tion, every­one ral­lied around me. My lawyer was very skilled; with affi­davits, tes­ti­mo­ny and let­ters of sup­port from my teach­ers, com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions, fam­i­ly, friends and church lead­ers, she argued that giv­en my extra­or­di­nary cir­cum­stances, I should be allowed to stay in the U.S. tem­porar­i­ly while I com­plet­ed my stud­ies. As a result, I was giv­en a tem­po­rary sta­tus that allowed me to work and pur­sue my aca­d­e­m­ic endeav­ors for two years while I remained in the U.S. In June 2012, when DACA went into effect, I was over­joyed to know that there was now a defined, albeit tem­po­rary, path for kids like me who had been brought to the U.S. as chil­dren and for whom the U.S. is the only home we have ever known. The DACA pro­gram made me real­ize how lucky I had been to receive tem­po­rary sta­tus in 2010 when most youth like me did not have the resources to hire attor­neys and fight their cas­es to stay in the U.S.

I’ve faced many edu­ca­tion­al bar­ri­ers because appli­ca­tions and schol­ar­ships require that I be a cit­i­zen or per­ma­nent res­i­dent. I think the most chal­leng­ing time peri­od for me thus far has been the col­lege appli­ca­tion process. When I was in high school, there was a pro­gram called the Mary­land Dis­tin­guished Schol­ars Pro­gram: the top five per­cent of grad­u­at­ing class­es were eli­gi­ble to apply. A lot of my friends applied for the pro­gram, but I could­n’t because you must be a U.S. cit­i­zen or have a green card. There was no box to check for those of us who had lived in the U.S. since we were chil­dren, but were undoc­u­ment­ed or had tem­po­rary sta­tus. Even once I was accept­ed to cer­tain schools, I was unable to attend because of finan­cial con­straints, as I was not eli­gi­ble for tuition assis­tance or in-state tuition ben­e­fits due to my sta­tus. I had worked so hard to achieve my dream of being accept­ed to col­lege, and then had to turn it down for con­di­tions I couldn’t con­trol or change—it was real­ly hard.

3. What is your happiest or most vivid childhood memory?

For me, it is real­ly the lit­tle things. Grow­ing up, we lived in the base­ment of my great uncle’s house. I remem­ber just being sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly, cousins and rel­a­tives and watch­ing the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Full House, and singing Mari­ah Carey and Boyz to Men with every­one. I have many mem­o­ries of my fam­i­ly being togeth­er and feel­ing supported.

4. Where do you see yourself in ten years? How would that change if you had status or citizenship?

I am cur­rent­ly a semes­ter away from grad­u­at­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land with a Bachelor’s degree in Bio­chem­istry. I am pur­su­ing two options because I don’t know how my sta­tus will impact my future. I will either go into med­ical research or become a phar­ma­cist. Yet with both options, I am ner­vous about how my sta­tus will affect my chance of suc­cess. If I remain undoc­u­ment­ed, will I be able to get fed­er­al fund­ing to pur­sue my med­ical research? If I com­plete my stud­ies in phar­ma­col­o­gy, will I be able to get a pro­fes­sion­al license even though I am undoc­u­ment­ed? I always have to keep my options open because I don’t know what my future holds.

Long term, I would love to rein­vest in my local com­mu­ni­ty here in Mary­land and help undoc­u­ment­ed South Asian stu­dents. Though my edu­ca­tion­al options were lim­it­ed by my sta­tus, I am still very for­tu­nate to have the finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty that many oth­ers in our com­mu­ni­ty do not.

5. What is one thing that no one knows about you or your most marked characteristic?

I would say my most marked char­ac­ter­is­tic is that I am very easy going and kind of a clown. I have always had a good sense of humor and I like jok­ing around with peo­ple. I think it helps me make the best of things.

6. If you could ask one question to President Obama, what would it be?

Mr. Pres­i­dent, how would you feel if you came home tonight and your daugh­ters and your wife were not there? How would you feel if you could not be there to tuck your kids into bed at night?

7. What is your favorite quote?

“Life is what you make it, I’ma make it
No mat­ter what it takes, we gonna take it” – Nas

8. Is there anything else you would like to share about yourself or your experience in the United States?

The immi­gra­tion sys­tem in Amer­i­ca is seri­ous­ly flawed and offers lim­it­ed viable solu­tions for fam­i­lies who want to stay togeth­er. We must learn to trust each oth­er and share our sto­ries, rather than liv­ing in fear of speak­ing up and draw­ing atten­tion to our­selves. I just look at the exam­ple of my own par­ents. They did­n’t want to talk open­ly or share their sto­ry because they were afraid of being deport­ed and that is exact­ly what hap­pened. They were no bet­ter off for remain­ing in the shad­ows. If we shed light on our sto­ries and draw atten­tion to the strug­gles and bar­ri­ers faced by South Asian immi­grants in the U.S., there is some hope for change in the future. Col­lec­tive­ly, we can make a difference.