Ainee Athar

Texas

Ainee Athar

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.

My sto­ry is com­pli­cat­ed. We arrived in the U.S. from Pak­istan when I was two years old, after I was diag­nosed with leukemia. At the time, Pak­istani hos­pi­tals didn’t pro­vide qual­i­ty care for chil­dren with can­cer. As a result, my aunt, an Amer­i­can cit­i­zen, arranged for me and my mom to come to the U.S. on a med­ical visa. I received med­ical treat­ment and recov­ered in the U.S., but relapsed when I was four. My mom and I decid­ed to stay in the U.S. in order for me to receive anoth­er round of treatment.

Dur­ing my treat­ment, my father was offered spon­sor­ship for an employ­ment visa in the U.S. My father and sis­ter joined us in the U.S., and the com­pa­ny filed the appli­ca­tion on behalf of my entire fam­i­ly. The appli­ca­tion was under­way when 9/11 hap­pened, which result­ed in a major delay in many immi­gra­tion cas­es; we wait­ed years and years to hear back. When we did, my father’s employ­ment visa was “arbi­trar­i­ly” denied.

We then applied for asy­lum based on reli­gious per­se­cu­tion, specif­i­cal­ly because of the wide­spread oppres­sion of Ahma­di Mus­lims such as my fam­i­ly mem­bers in Pak­istan. Based upon this his­to­ry, Ahmadis are often recip­i­ents of asy­lum. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, our case was denied by a Hous­ton judge with a high rejec­tion rate. At this point, I was attend­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas-Austin (UT-Austin), so my fam­i­ly decid­ed to stay and appeal our asy­lum case since we believed we had a good chance of winning.

In Novem­ber 2010, my sopho­more year at UT-Austin, Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforce­ment (ICE) offi­cers raid­ed our home in Hous­ton and placed my par­ents in deten­tion. Hav­ing my par­ents sud­den­ly ripped from me was trau­ma­tiz­ing. I was ter­ri­fied for our fam­i­ly and the uncer­tain­ty of what lay ahead. That’s when I learned that our attor­ney nev­er filed our appeal after my par­ents’ asy­lum case was denied; we were out of sta­tus. He lied and told us that he had filed the appeal, but when we con­front­ed him and request­ed proof of the fil­ing, he stopped com­mu­ni­cat­ing with us. Because our appeal wasn’t filed, an order of depor­ta­tion was entered against us. I didn’t real­ize until that moment that we were undoc­u­ment­ed.  We did every­thing we were sup­posed to do, but it wasn’t enough.

My par­ents were released from the deten­tion cen­ter one month lat­er, but were forced to wear ankle bracelets to mon­i­tor their move­ments for six months after their release. Dur­ing this peri­od my sis­ter and I were mon­i­tored through ICE’s Inten­sive Super­vi­sion Appear­ance Pro­gram (ISAP). Through ISAP, we received ran­dom auto­mat­ed calls which, when not answered after three rings, alert­ed immi­gra­tion offi­cers who would then call demand­ing to know our where­abouts. Though we con­tin­ued to attend school, it was very hard for me to engage in class­es and feel like a nor­mal stu­dent. I could­n’t con­cen­trate on my stud­ies and cam­pus life know­ing that my fam­i­ly could be torn apart at any moment.

After six months, my fam­i­ly was allowed to remain in the U.S. togeth­er until my sis­ter and I fin­ished school. I filed for DACA in April 2013, one month before grad­u­a­tion, and was grant­ed DACA sta­tus in Decem­ber 2013. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, because I wait­ed so much longer than the antic­i­pat­ed time to receive DACA, I had to turn down sev­er­al job offers.

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

The biggest bar­ri­ers for me have been pur­su­ing aca­d­e­m­ic and career oppor­tu­ni­ties. In high school, I want­ed to attend col­lege out­side of Texas in order to have access to cours­es of study unavail­able in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas sys­tem. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I didn’t qual­i­fy for finan­cial aid because I didn’t have a green card or cit­i­zen­ship. I con­tin­ued to face lim­i­ta­tions at UT-Austin due to my sta­tus, includ­ing that I was exclud­ed from a pres­ti­gious White House intern­ship because it was only avail­able to those with a green card or cit­i­zen­ship. Even dur­ing the process of apply­ing for DACA, I was not giv­en any infor­ma­tion about the sta­tus of my appli­ca­tion. Dur­ing the eight months I wait­ed for my DACA appli­ca­tion to be approved, I had to give up count­less job oppor­tu­ni­ties and intern­ships because I was unsure of if or when my sta­tus would be grant­ed. I was in per­pet­u­al limbo.

Hav­ing DACA sta­tus has def­i­nite­ly improved my sit­u­a­tion. I have more inde­pen­dence: I can work, get a dri­ver’s license, and I am able to live my life with­out fear. How­ev­er, most gov­ern­ment intern­ships and jobs beyond entry-lev­el require at least a green card, so my DACA sta­tus doesn’t make me eli­gi­ble for those posi­tions. DACA sta­tus also cre­ates com­pli­ca­tions for mixed-sta­tus fam­i­lies like mine; my par­ents still face uncer­tain­ty. I am incred­i­bly grate­ful for my DACA sta­tus, but often feel guilty about being able to stay in the U.S. I con­stant­ly wor­ry that my par­ents will be deport­ed and tak­en from me.

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

I was a very imag­i­na­tive lit­tle kid, but also very thor­ough and detail-ori­ent­ed. I remem­ber plan­ning out and orches­trat­ing these very grand tea par­ties with a huge, fan­cy table spread. I lined up all of my dolls and stuffed ani­mals as guests. Hav­ing tea par­ties was a big part of my child­hood and pro­vid­ed a much-need­ed dis­trac­tion from real­i­ty. As a child liv­ing with can­cer and con­stant­ly in-between treat­ments, it offered me a space to escape to a mag­i­cal world where every­thing was per­fect and I was in control.

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

I don’t know where I will be in ten years. My DACA sta­tus may not be renewed, or my par­ents could be deport­ed. All of these unknown fac­tors make it hard for me to plan long-term.

If I am still in the U.S. in ten years, I would love to be a lob­by­ist on tech­nol­o­gy pol­i­cy at a big firm. If I was grant­ed cit­i­zen­ship, I could rise above an entry-lev­el posi­tion, get the required secu­ri­ty clear­ance, trav­el, and advance my career to be able to sup­port my fam­i­ly. Being grant­ed a green card or cit­i­zen­ship would also give me access to health care under the Afford­able Health Care Act (ACA), which is cur­rent­ly not acces­si­ble to DACA recip­i­ents, but is crit­i­cal for peo­ple with a his­to­ry of life-threat­en­ing illness.

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

My most marked char­ac­ter­is­tic is that I am very artic­u­late and am known for using sharp lan­guage to sup­port my argu­ments. I am often cho­sen to be the spokesper­son for my group. When­ev­er my friends have ideas in their heads and are unsure of how to frame an issue, they come to me and I help them work through it.

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

How can you sup­port immi­gra­tion reform but not place a mora­to­ri­um on depor­ta­tion or pro­vide relief for peo­ple who are not DACA­ment­ed? What about their par­ents and fam­i­lies? What about the mil­lions of peo­ple liv­ing in the U.S. who are not eli­gi­ble for DACA? Why are you tear­ing fam­i­lies apart?

7. What is your favorite quote?

“Well-behaved women sel­dom make his­to­ry.” – Lau­rel Thatch­er Ulrich

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

I would like peo­ple to reflect on the con­cept of “belong­ing” and remem­ber that many undoc­u­ment­ed peo­ple have lived in the U.S. for most of their lives. They con­sid­er Amer­i­ca their home. They have no oth­er place to go—many can’t speak the lan­guage in their coun­try of birth or no longer have fam­i­ly or oth­er con­nec­tions there. They con­tin­ue to build com­mu­ni­ty ties, con­tribute to the econ­o­my, and par­tic­i­pate in Amer­i­can soci­ety. To tell peo­ple that they don’t belong in the U.S. is just not fair. There is no path­way to legal­iza­tion for most undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants; they are vic­tims of an out­dat­ed system.