From the Mouth of an Amazing Young Activist

Please Support the DREAM Act

aa worked in our communications department over several months and is one of the many DREAMers being stifled by our country’s broken immigration system. Please support her and 2.1 million others by calling a U.S. Senator today: http://action.dreamactivist.org/movedream/

I was born in Kuwait, the daughter of working class Palestinians. After the first Gulf War, when thousands of Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait, we lost everything we had built there. We left for Jordan with only our car and a few belongings. In Jordan my father struggled to find a stable job, and after much deliberation we sold whatever we had left and immigrated to America in 1993. I was in the second grade and had no idea at the time that we would never see our family back home, that our visa was a tourist visa that would expire soon thereafter, that I would be ineligible for financial aid when I reached college, or that I my status would outweigh my qualifications in trying to land a job.

Growing up on Chicago’s South Side, all I knew was that if I wanted to be successful I had to work hard. It’s a simple formula that has for centuries been the foundation of this experiment known as America. I worked hard, was at the top of my classes, and graduated with a degree in architecture. Then I crashed headfirst into the “invisible wall.” My life is at a standstill. It’s like being stuck in time, except I’m still aging and mind has begun withering. I can’t get a job, can’t travel freely, and can’t go back to school. But I continue to dream.

You can read the rest here.