Posted on 07/28/2014 2:34:33 AM PDT by markomalley
Fifteen years ago, when I was 6, my parents and I moved to the United States from Canada, where I was born. Since moving to this great country, I have attended elementary, middle and high school in Coral Springs, Fla., and I’m currently pursuing a bachelor degree in biological sciences and pre-med at Florida Atlantic University.
I’m also a “non-resident alien,” meaning I was able to stay in the United States first under a visa because of my father’s job and now thanks to a student visa. But because of my status as a non-resident alien, I have paid out-of-state tuition during my time at Florida Atlantic.
Even under the new law signed by Florida Gov. Rick Scott—which grants in-state tuition to students living illegally in the United States—I’m left paying out-of-state rates.
How can someone who is living in the United States illegally get a tuition break but I get penalized for doing things legally?
My father has been on a nonimmigrant NAFTA professional visa as part of his job for 15 years. He personifies a typical hard-working American citizen. He has paid his taxes in the United States and has worked feverishly as a computer consultant but could not be sponsored for a green card until recently, when he was hired as a full-time employee.
Upon receiving the news he’s now being sponsored for a green card, I was ecstatic for my father and also excited that I would be able to attend medical school in the United States.
L-R Marcie, Brandon, Jeffrey, Amber (Photo: Marcie Macknofsky)
My feeling quickly changed, though, when I learned that even though my father was able to “grandfather” both my mother and sister on his green card, I would be excluded since I turned 21 on Dec. 20, 2013. I already have aged out. (I also have a 5-year-old U.S.-born brother.)
Now, I find it is nearly impossible to become a physician and attend medical school in the United States. I cannot go to a state medical school as I am considered an international student, despite my extensive education and residency in the United States.
I’ve considered alternatives, such as attending a private university. But few will accept a student without a green card. And without a green card or an American co-signer, I cannot obtain any sort of scholarship or student loan being a Canadian citizen. Without a loan, I can’t afford the cost of tuition for medical school.
At Florida Atlantic University, I have a 3.87 GPA, tutor for biochemistry and work up to 10-hour shifts as a hospital emergency room physician scribe a few times a week. At a time when the United States is facing a shortage of doctors, I’m committed to a career in medicine. I’ve been so grateful for the opportunities in life that I hope I can give back to my community through medicine.
I believe that being a doctor is a calling to me as I wish to help others in the way that physicians have helped me. From being hit by a truck when I was in high school to saving one of my best friend’s life from lung cancer at the age of 19, what doctors do on a daily basis is sheerly incomprehensible, and all I want to have is the opportunity to follow my version of the American dream.
For the past 15 years, I’ve come to call the United States my home. I consider myself an American in every way, and I hope that one day, I’ll become a citizen. In the meantime, though, I hope our nation’s leaders will remember those of us who are following a legal path to citizenship and at least level the playing field for us.
I greatly sympathize! But for Pete’s sake he and his family have high IQs and should have taken care of this years ago before he was 21. Should have had an immigration lawyer on the case years ago and paid him the lousy $5000-$7000 (In installments if necessary) to take care of his (Brandon’s) status. They should have known that he was going to be screwed this way
How about Med School in Canada where Brandon is a citizen?
Viva Mexico!
Y El Salvador!
Y Guatemala!
Y Honduras!
Screw you white boy!
I wonder how he and his family votes?
Just explain that you are a refugee fleeing a repressive government.......ours!
I would hope, since they are only Green Card holders, that they don't vote at all.
You got that right.
Sob story.
Follow the law.
If you are not a US Citizen, you are not a US Citizen.
Go back to Canada and go to school there.
Overstaying a visa or “timing out” makes you a law breaker.
We have enough illegal-alien lawbreakers as it is,
or am I being redundant?
My nephew had to wait a year before he could get into University of Michigan's med school because of the greenies who were accepted ahead of him.........
Except he never was illegal, so I have sympathy for his sob story.
1, You’re white
2, You speak English
3, You probably vote “conservative”
Reread the article. He’s not here illegally. He hasn’t overstayed a visa.
Congress and the mob of “faceless bureaucrats” have created a system so that one cannot wade through the “legal” way of becoming a citizen.
In the progressive left’s caste system, victim hood is everything. A legal English speaking cis-gendered, heterosexual, white male immigrant will always fall near the bottom if the caste structure. The undocumented transgendered lesbian Latina immigrant will be near the top of the caste structure.
If this guy were smart, he would head to Mexico, hire a coyote for $7,000, and get into the USA the easy way. Then he would be home free and in medical school with free or in-state tuition inside of six months. He could also get welfare and food stamps. But that's no big deal. Anybody can do that.
Will never happen.
Yeah, but why did it take them 15 years to decide to become an American?
Transferring from some types of Visas to a green card and then to citizenship is full of risks. For example, if you try to apply for a green card from a nafta visa could wind up with you being denied entry to the US. I would bet nafta was involved in this case.
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