What immigration means to me

Immigration means Republican and Democrat to Congress, votes and election to elected officials, and statistics and a macro scale identity change. Yet immigration, to the immigrants themselves, means jobs, personal identities, security, hope, opportunities, and sometimes lives. I am an immigrant, or at least about to be. Yet I, or my family as a unit, has encountered many obstacles during the process of application. There were moments at which we thought there wouldn't be a chance to succeed, yet we went through it and moved on. We have invested so much, both time-wise and financially, and we are having so much hope for our futures. Yet now a seemingly insurmountable problem has come to us and we have thought through pretty much every single possible way to get around it. And yet it remains insurmountable. Immigration to me is to have a chance to do what I want, be independent, have a good life, and be able to help the people I want to help. Yet at this moment it seems no more like a permission to simply be 'legal'.