Opinion | I am an immigrant, and right now I have survivor’s guilt

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To many Americans, my life represents the ideal immigrant story.

I came to the U.S. legally when I was just 12. Shortly after, I became a lawful permanent resident. I graduated at the top of my high school class, earned my college degree and went on to obtain a master’s in public policy from Harvard University. Grateful for the opportunities this country offered, I dedicated myself to public service. I worked for Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, then worked primarily on education policy issues. After that I attended one of the nation’s top law schools, and today I am a practicing attorney. I’m married and have three American-born children. My family pays taxes, votes and contributes to our community.

But as I watch ICE descend on our community, I don’t feel pride in my accomplishments. I feel something closer to survivor’s guilt.

That’s because in reality, I am no different from most undocumented immigrants. I didn’t “earn” the right to the life I am living. My path to citizenship was an accident.

Shortly after we arrived in the U.S., my mother fell in love with an American citizen. They married and she became a lawful resident, and through her, so did I. I didn’t choose that path. I didn’t create it. I simply benefited from it.

Take the case of a young immigrant, one of many recently taken by ICE here in Minnesota recently. He migrated to the U.S. as a minor seeking asylum. Now a senior in high school, he is supposed to graduate this spring. Immigration officials had allowed him and his mother to remain free while an immigration judge considers their asylum case, which is still pending. He was doing well in school, working and staying out of trouble. He was doing “everything right.”

Then ICE picked him up as he was leaving the gym.

With no notice to his mother, he was taken and flown to Texas within hours. He is now being held in a room with dozens of other people, waiting for the same court decision he was already waiting for in Minnesota — only now he waits in custody, with no opportunities. No school. No work. And without his family.

As a child, he is not being given the chance I got. And he may never.

For years, political leaders have portrayed immigrants as criminals, uneducated or “the worst” of their countries. But that narrative collapses the moment you meet people like my client. He wants to graduate. He wants to work. He wants to build a life. He wants his day in court. And now, more than anything, he wants to be reunited with his mother.

The better question is: What can people become if we give them an opportunity?

From what I’ve experienced and observed, most people who have come here as immigrants rise to the occasion. They go to school. They show up to work. They invest in their communities. They raise families. They build futures. Many become essential workers, small-business owners, caregivers and leaders — the people every strong society depends on.

My life turned out the way it did because I was treated with dignity and given opportunity. Today, immigrants all over this state and country are receiving the opposite: They are ostracized and, worse, detained and separated from their families.

Americans should ask themselves which approach better reflects our values — and which one better serves our future. Because the American dream should not depend on accidents of birth. It should depend on opportunity, effort and the chance to prove what’s possible.