I lawfully lived in America starting when I was 4 months old. I learned to walk and talk there. I went to school there, from preschool through college. My closest friends, my career and my family are all there. America is the only home I’ve ever truly known.
Yet in the eyes of our immigration system, I don’t belong.
On the Fourth of July, while millions of Americans gathered for fireworks and celebrations of our independence, I packed my bags and left America. Not because I had broken the law or chosen another country. I left because, after my family and I had followed every immigration rule for 25 years, our archaic immigration system offered me no means to stay.
How is it possible to grow up in America legally but not have a clear path to citizenship? It’s the same impossible question facing more than 250,000 children of long term visa holders who face leaving after aging out of the protections their parents’ visas once offered them.
My story mirrors many others’. In 2000, while my mother was in her third trimester with me, my father, an engineer in Mexico City, was offered a job in Texas. Because my mother was visibly pregnant, my parents and their lawyers worried that applying for a visa would jeopardize her approval. So my parents made the difficult decision to wait until I was born before beginning our visa paperwork.
I was born in Mexico City in October 2000 and moved with my parents to Dallas four months later as a dependent on their E-2 visa, a type of visa primarily offered to individuals who start a small business employing Americans. Those four months altered my life trajectory: Had I been born after my family relocated, like both of my younger siblings, I would be an American citizen today.
For most of my childhood, the distinction between my siblings and me hardly mattered. Like them, I spoke English more comfortably than I spoke Spanish. I watched the Disney Channel, adored One Direction, stayed up too late playing my Nintendo DS, celebrated the Fourth of July, joined school clubs. I was just another kid growing up in a suburb of Dallas. I graduated at the top of my high school class, led student organizations and was admitted to a Texas public university.
When I was choosing where I’d go to college, I learned that I would soon age out of my protected status. If dependent children living lawfully with their parents on employment-based visas turn 21 before their parents obtain green cards, they are forced to leave unless they secure another visa. Many families have green card applications that remain stuck in years- or even decades-long backlogs, leaving their children with no clear pathway to citizenship. Parents on some employment-based nonimmigrant visas, like the E-2 that my family had, can lawfully renew their visas indefinitely while raising their children, but they have no easy way to convert that lawful status to legal permanent residence for their children.
When I was 20, I traveled alone to Mexico City during the pandemic to apply for an international student visa in hopes of extending my status. Thankfully, it was approved. That visa allowed me to finish my computer science degree, become president of my university’s Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers chapter and land an internship that turned into a full-time engineering job.
After I graduated, my student visa expired, but I was allowed three years of work authorization because of my STEM degree. Beyond that, my future rested on the H-1B work visa lottery, in which the demand far exceeds availability. My employer entered me in the H-1B visa lottery three times in three years. I was never selected. So this month, while Americans celebrated independence, I left for Mexico. I refused to violate the immigration laws I’ve spent my entire life trying to follow.
I am starting over in a country where I happened to be born but had never really lived. My parents, siblings and friends and even my dog remain in Texas. I found an apartment in Mexico City with roommates my age. Though I was raised bilingually and am very fluent in conversational Spanish, my technical Spanish is weaker than my English. This is one of my main concerns. I’m extremely fortunate to keep my job with my U.S. employer, now from Mexico. But America raised me, provided me with an incredible education and set me up for a strong career, and I just wish that I could continue to contribute at home.
My story is far from unique. According to the nonpartisan immigrant advocacy group Improve the Dream, whose members include thousands of children of long-term visa holders raised in America, and of which I am a part, there are more than a quarter of a million children and young adults living in America in this situation. When we reach the age of 21, each of us painfully discovers there are few paths to remain in America.
Our families followed the rules, renewed visas for decades and contributed to the American economy. Yet we, the children, often face exile and family separation simply because Congress has not modernized the law. Many of us are forced to leave. Raised and educated there, now some of my peers have moved to work for companies outside the United States. While we are separated from our homes and our families, America loses members of its future taxpaying work force.
Fixing this should not be controversial. The America’s Children Act — introduced in 2025 by Senators Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky; Alex Padilla, Democrat of California; and several other lawmakers — would provide a pathway for those who have lawfully spent most of their lives in America. It would create an opportunity to apply for a green card for those who were legally raised in America for at least 10 years and graduated from an American university. It would be, essentially, a 15-year pathway to citizenship.
People often confuse my situation with those who have protection under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Ironically, I could have had temporary protection through the DACA program if I had been undocumented, but the program explicitly excludes anyone with lawful status, even if other requirements are met.
Allowing children who lawfully grew up in America to stay shouldn’t be a partisan issue. In 2022 my Texas senator, John Cornyn, seemed willing to work toward a solution. Even President Trump expressed support for a solution like it.
My parents went to America believing that hard work, education and respect for the law would give me opportunities they never had. They kept their promise. I kept mine. I never stopped believing in America, but America’s immigration system never believed there should be a place for someone like me.
And it all traces back to four months at the very beginning of my life, four months that I never chose but that determined everything that followed. I hope that Congress fixes this so nobody else has to go through what I did and that, one day, I can return home.
