The American Dream is Dead for Immigrants

The 250th anniversary of America is upon us and the people who helped build this country are fleeing.

The latest Supreme Court session is over, and immigrants were the main target of the conservative xenophobes. The ruling on Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in Mullin v Doe was especially egregious. While the decision was specifically about Donald Trump’s decision to end the program for Haitians and Syrians, the writing is on the wall: America will no longer offer TPS to migrants as it has for more than three decades.

There’s nothing this court loves more than upending decades-old programs and precedents in the name of Republican Jesus.

There are more than 1.3 million immigrants in the U.S. with TPS. Some of them are members of my family. In 1990, Salvadoran immigrants were granted TPS in response to the civil war in El Salvador. At the peak of the war, the American government spent $1 million a day funding the battle.

Did you know I co-host a podcast every week? Tune in to this week’s episode to learn more about the decisions handed down by the most corrupt Supreme Court in modern history.

Over the course of the 12-year war, the Land of the Free-ish spent between $4 billion and $6 billion helping the Salvadoran government kill its own citizens (including an entire village), nuns, a priest, and many more. My husband grew up during the conflict, and one of his earliest memories is of a woman with piercing blue eyes lying dead in the street.

Over in America, Salvadoran refugees settled in cities like Los Angeles and the D.C. metro area. In LA, those refugees were harassed and robbed by street gangs. That led to the formation of MS-13; the Salvadoran gang Trump and Republicans use as an excuse to villainize innocent immigrants. Ironically, the gang was formed to protect Salvadorans but exploded into a multinational criminal organization that destroyed El Salvador for years.

As members of MS-13 were deported in the ‘90s and ‘00s, it became incredibly powerful in El Salvador. My husband soon realized there were only two roads for men in his country: jail or death. He fled to the U.S. in the mid-90s to make a better life for himself. Fortunately, he was able to get TPS.

While my husband is now a permanent resident, we know many Salvadorans who are not. They rely on TPS to live and work in the U.S., and it’s been great. Or, it was until January 2025, when Trump took office.

In the year and a half since our country came under the control of the fascist regime in the White House, immigrants have suffered greatly. ICE has thrown tens of thousands of them into American concentration camps. Brown citizens and permanent residents have been taken into custody because ICE agents refuse to believe they are legal. People have died. Children are without parents. The fear in the community is palpable. My husband is afraid to leave the country because he fears he won’t be able to return to his children.

Immigration courts are backlogged with cases because the regime has fired judges whom they do not believe are sufficiently xenophobic. The processing times at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) are bonkers. We have loved ones and friends who have not received their TPS cards from 2025. They’ve lost their jobs and driver’s licenses as a result. They’ve lost their legal status. The only protection they had from a regime intent on destroying their lives and families.

Currently, El Salvador is one of four remaining countries that still have TPS (though, do they really have it if they aren’t getting their cards?), but we know that will end this fall. It’s expected that approximately 200,000 Salvadorans will lose their legal status. They will be thrust into the shadows in a country they fled to for safety. A country they have loved and made better. A country built by other people just like them.

The other day, my husband came home from work and told me a close family friend packed his bags and moved back to El Salvador. He’d been in this country for 35+ years. Just like that, he’s gone. Two other people are also gone. They went home after months of feeling unsafe.

One of our loved ones recently went to the Salvadoran Consulate two blocks from Trump’s Doral Golf Course to obtain his passport so he could prepare to leave. He has lived in this country for almost 40 years and has an American child. He has built the very houses MAGA morons live in when they are plotting against him and calling migrants criminals on the internet. He made their lives better, and they have repaid him with nothing but pain. He no longer believes in the American dream, neither do any of our other friends. If it weren’t for our children, my husband would be gone too.

I used to cry when I heard the National Anthem because I was so proud of my country. Some of that was the naivety of youth, but it was also because I’d seen what this country can offer people. My grandparents fled to America in the late ‘50s. They were Catholics who grew up in Belfast in the ‘30s and ‘40s. They faced state-sponsored discrimination and segregation. My grandmother talks about not being able to work for companies owned by protestants. So, my grandfather migrated to New York, and my grandma followed with my infant uncle shortly thereafter.

My grandparents became citizens during The Troubles and raised their three kids to love America. My father joined the military when he was 17 years old. My aunt became a successful businesswoman. Unfortunately, my uncle died in a car accident in his 20s, but he, too, loved this country. Maybe that’s why I married an immigrant. I don’t know, but I always had faith that the dream everyone talks about was attainable. Silly me.

Sadly, my husband’s experience has been wildly different than my grandparents’. He tells me all the time that he no longer feels welcome here. How could he? Thirty percent of this country are vapid Trump supporters who want people like him to die. He said that not a day goes by that he doesn’t experience racism or xenophobia of some kind.

It’s exhausting. He’s exhausted. His community is exhausted. I am exhausted. I no longer cry when I hear the National Anthem. I get pissed.

America is no longer a dream. It’s a nightmare.

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