The government is the midst of the longest shutdown in history, with President Trump and Congress being unable to come to a budget agreement as Trump is adamant $5 billion in funds are appropriated for a border wall.

I’ve spent months hearing and reading devastating stories from the border. I’ve been brought to tears, my heart aching for these families and children. But it does make me wonder, what are legal immigrants doing wrong?

My family has lived here in the United States for more than ten years. And while none of us may have been born here, my family, like millions of other families of legal immigrants love this country just as much as any citizen. Our families raise our children in this country, go to school in this country. We pay our taxes and contribute to the economy. We endure racism, deal with the restrictions of our visas, and most of all we wait, for years and years, for the day our green cards finally come.

But despite the fact that we came here legally, our families could be torn apart too.

The race for green cards is not one without a deadline because here’s the thing; at 21 years old, children of legal immigrants are sent back to the end of the immigration line. The system registers them as legal adults, causing them to be excluded from the terms of their parent’s visas. So the only choices left are to either apply for a student visa, or go back to the country we were born in.

Most of these children have been living in the United States since they were infants. They were raised as Americans, but our government doesn’t recognise them as such. So if families don’t receive their green cards before their children turn 21( something they have no control over) their kids are no longer allowed to live with or get money from them.

Which would be fine, if these kids were allowed to work. But they’re not. Children of H-4 VISA holders aren’t allowed to hold jobs or earn money, leaving them completely dependant on their parents.

And now, because of the government shutdown, no new green cards are being registered, which means that immigrant families are losing more precious time.

The immigration system in this country is flawed in more ways than I can count. But we came here for a reason.

We came here because we believed that in America, the land of the free, our families could have a better life and a better future, the same belief that brought the pilgrims here all those years ago.