Community Member Sam Lee's Testimony at DACA Congressional Hearing

Sam Lee, HANA Center Leader

June 15, 2026

DACA Congressional Hearing

Thank you for the opportunity to share my story. 

I was 6 years old when my family immigrated to the US. We left South Korea after US backed economic policies implemented in 1988 which led to the 1997 economic crash. 

We built our home in the northern suburbs of Chicago. I fell in love with our community, going to a friend's quince, freestyling in the school hallways, and friends asking me about Korean dramas. 

My parents and I worked hard running our own restaurant. Around the time I was applying for college, the DACA program was announced. Because of DACA and the labor of my parents, my brothers and I were able to attend college and I majored in psychology. 

Now, I work in healthcare research in Chicago. Immigrants work in restaurants, schools, childcare, and many other places that are essential to our society and economy. But we are more than just our labor and the taxes we pay. 

We build community and show up where systems fail. Through mutual aid efforts in Chicago, I have: been outside to get hotels for unhoused people during freezing temperatures, bolster a food distribution and clothing closet, support my trans friends as a pre-crisis responder, administer Narcan, and more. Some of these efforts started to serve asylum seekers, but grew as we worked in solidarity with many communities, recognizing that our struggles are interconnected.

In growing up in the US, community has been critical to my well-being. I am thankful for organizations like the HANA Center, an immigrant justice organization based in Chicago’s third Congressional District. HANA Center provides social services and organizes Korean and multiethnic immigrants to fight for the systemic change we need. Each year, HANA Center assists nearly 200 young people like myself to file their DACA renewals. I’ve built community with other DACA recipients and immigrants, and had opportunities I would’ve never had otherwise.

But now DACA is being destroyed. People are facing long delays that push them out of status and some are being deported. Just last week in my childhood suburb, a disabled DACA recipient and educator was fired due to the renewal backlog. She did everything “right” – but the system failed.

Our immigrant families and friends, not only DACA recipients, are under attack. Communities are being targeted and terrorized because of their skin color or how they came to live here. Existing opportunities are being destroyed and new ones are nonexistent. 

We need a permanent solution. We need a pathway to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented immigrants, and we need it now. I call on Congress to pass the Registry Act and to abolish ICE. Every person deserves dignity and has the right to belong. Thank you.