Rhon­dor Dowlat

Trinida­di­an Rishi Singh, 29, known as the "Queens Dream­er," was among six young un­doc­u­ment­ed im­mi­grants who had the priv­i­lege of meet­ing with Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States (US) Barack Oba­ma at his Oval Of­fice in the White House, Wash­ing­ton DC, on Feb­ru­ary 4.

Singh de­scribed his meet­ing with Oba­ma as a ner­vous and ex­cit­ing mo­ment.

He saw it as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to rep­re­sent the larg­er im­mi­grant com­mu­ni­ty and to let their voic­es be heard.

Singh was able to con­vey to Oba­ma that the most re­cent im­mi­gra­tion ac­tions im­ple­ment­ed, and which he and oth­ers all fought for, will help many in com­mu­ni­ties through­out the US.

Singh, along with the five oth­ers, ben­e­fit­ted from the De­ferred Ac­tion for Child­hood Ar­rivals (Da­ca) pro­gramme.

"We need to go fur­ther. More than half of the un­doc­u­ment­ed im­mi­grant pop­u­la­tion is still at risk of de­ten­tions and de­por­ta­tions."

In 2012, through or­gan­is­ing and pres­sure from the grass­roots com­mu­ni­ty, Oba­ma passed a pro­gramme through ex­ec­u­tive ac­tion called Da­ca, which gave re­lief to over 600,000 un­doc­u­ment­ed young peo­ple that came to the US be­fore the age of 16 and were un­der 30 years old, who were in the US pri­or to Jan­u­ary 2007, and some oth­er cri­te­ria.

The re­lief/de­ferred ac­tion sta­tus al­lows those that qual­i­fy to ob­tain a so­cial se­cu­ri­ty num­ber and work au­tho­ri­sa­tion for two-year pe­ri­ods which would be re­new­able. This has al­lowed them to work legal­ly in the US, ob­tain a dri­ver's li­cence (in some states), get cred­it cards, ob­tain gov­ern­ment is­sued IDs, the abil­i­ty to trav­el with­in the US by plane (in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el in cer­tain cir­cum­stances and ap­proval needs to be ob­tained).

Singh re­ceived de­ferred ac­tion sta­tus in 2013, which has al­lowed him to work legal­ly, ob­tain a NY dri­ver's li­cence, and oth­er ben­e­fits.

"In No­vem­ber 2014, we were able to win an ex­pan­sion of Da­ca (age cap re­moved and be in the US pri­or to Jan­u­ary 2010) and a new pro­gramme that would ben­e­fit un­doc­u­ment­ed par­ents of US cit­i­zens (chil­dren) or le­gal per­ma­nent res­i­dent chil­dren."

He said it was es­ti­mat­ed that these new pro­grammes would ben­e­fit over four mil­lion peo­ple.

Singh has been able to build the lead­er­ship of hun­dreds of young peo­ple in New York City through the or­gan­i­sa­tion he cur­rent­ly works for–DRUM-South Asian Or­gan­is­ing Cen­tre. He has been work­ing at this or­gan­i­sa­tion for over a decade.

He was part of ef­forts to change both lo­cal New York City poli­cies and na­tion­al poli­cies that will pro­vide greater eq­ui­ty, jus­tice and re­sources to mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties and work­ing class com­mu­ni­ties of colour. He was al­so able to ad­dress the Unit­ed Na­tions dur­ing the High-Lev­el Di­a­logue of Mi­gra­tion and De­vel­op­ment Civ­il So­ci­ety Day in 2013, high­light­ing the need to end the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of im­mi­grants and shift from neo-lib­er­al led mi­gra­tion and de­vel­op­ment poli­cies to a hu­man rights frame­work.

In search of a bet­ter life

Singh came with his fam­i­ly from Trinidad on a vis­i­tors visa to the US at the age of 10. They over­stayed their visa and be­came out of sta­tus/un­doc­u­ment­ed. His moth­er is orig­i­nal­ly from Wood­land, south Trinidad and his fa­ther, who passed away five years ago, was from Es­per­an­za Vil­lage, al­so in south Trinidad. He ex­plained that his par­ents on­ly want­ed a bet­ter life and be­lieved that the US would have grant­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for this.

Singh said be­ing un­doc­u­ment­ed in the US has many ob­sta­cles and lim­i­ta­tions but there are many peo­ple that choose to or­gan­ise and build com­mu­ni­ty pow­er to change the laws and con­di­tions that af­fect their lives.

"I de­cid­ed to walk that path al­most 12 years ago, when I was 17 years old."

Singh re­alised he was un­doc­u­ment­ed when he was grad­u­at­ing from high school at the age of 17.

"It was when I was ap­ply­ing to uni­ver­si­ties that my ad­vis­ers asked me about my sta­tus and I found out that we were un­doc­u­ment­ed. I had grad­u­at­ed top of my class but due to my sta­tus, I was un­able to ob­tain fi­nan­cial aid or schol­ar­ships to pay for uni­ver­si­ties that I want­ed to go to. I end­ed up go­ing to pub­lic uni­ver­si­ty (Hunter Col­lege of the City Uni­ver­si­ty of NY). I re­ceived a bach­e­lors de­gree in Psy­chol­o­gy and af­ter grad­u­at­ing, I went back to get a sec­ond de­gree in ac­count­ing since I did not have my sta­tus and was un­able to work legal­ly."

Af­ter grad­u­at­ing from high school he be­came an ac­tive or­gan­is­er in the im­mi­grant com­mu­ni­ty in or­der to help in get­ting greater ac­cess and re­sources for all im­mi­granty­outh and fam­i­lies. As a re­sult of his ef­forts, Singh fi­nal­ly met Oba­ma this year. This, he said, was due to a grass­roots cam­paign which un­doc­u­ment­ed peo­ple from all across the US worked on to push Oba­ma and oth­ers to pro­vide re­lief for the mil­lions of un­doc­u­ment­ed peo­ple in the US.

"It is es­ti­mat­ed that there are up­wards of 11 mil­lion un­doc­u­ment­ed im­mi­grants in the US."

He as­sured that he will con­tin­ue to or­gan­ise for im­mi­grants' rights, "to make sure the im­mi­gra­tion ac­tions we won are im­ple­ment­ed and all oth­ers will be able to be pro­tect­ed."

For his long-term goals, Singh said he want­ed to be able to help peo­ple and sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of oth­ers, and be part of the move­ment to con­tin­ue to win greater rights and jus­tice for all peo­ple.

"I would like peo­ple to un­der­stand that be­ing im­mi­grants in an­oth­er coun­try and in par­tic­u­lar be­ing un­doc­u­ment­ed may present many ob­sta­cles in schools, work, and every-day life, but it's noth­ing to be ashamed of.

"Change doesn't come about on its own. There is pow­er when peo­ple col­lec­tive­ly work to change their con­di­tions and stand up and fight in the face of ad­ver­si­ty." He said un­der­stand­ing, bridg­ing and own­ing iden­ti­ties from race, class, gen­der, re­li­gion, sex­u­al­i­ty, and any oth­er can cre­ate a more just and fair world.

Singh said he was think­ing strong­ly in terms of start­ing up his own hu­man rights or­gan­i­sa­tion in the fu­ture.

What's the Queens Dream­er?

The "Queens Dream­er" is a ter­mi­nol­o­gy used to re­fer to Singh. "Queens" be­cause he lives in Queens, New York, and "Dream­er" is a term used in the Unit­ed States to re­fer to young peo­ple who are un­doc­u­ment­ed im­mi­grants (youths brought to the US at a young age but do not have their pa­pers/green card/le­gal im­mi­gra­tion sta­tus).

About DRUM-South Asian or­gan­is­ing cen­tre

DRUM-South Asian Or­gan­is­ing Cen­tre is a com­mu­ni­ty based non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion that builds the lead­er­ship and pow­er of the South Asian di­as­po­ra of work­ing class im­mi­grant youth, fam­i­lies and work­ers for eco­nom­ic and ed­u­ca­tion­al jus­tice, im­mi­grant and civ­il rights. Peo­ple who are di­rect­ly af­fect­ed have the abil­i­ty to trans­form their con­di­tions and the poli­cies that af­fect their lives and through po­lit­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion and grass­roots cam­paigns to change lo­cal and na­tion­al poli­cies.