Eight years and four months is how long it took me to finally become an asylee in the United States. During that period, I witnessed three U.S. presidential elections, and the uncontested rise and ultimate downfall of Sheikh Hasina, the disgraced former prime minister of Bangladesh, the country I once called home.
I have also witnessed the deadliest year in decades for people in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, and have watched Bangladeshi student leaders who once led the revolution against Hasina describing members of the LGBTQ+ community as “mentally ill” and a “cancer to society.”
I am a gay man who escaped homophobic persecution by his government and society at large, only to live for a long time as a stateless person in a country that is becoming increasingly violent toward its immigrant population.
I moved to the United States in 2017. It was neither an easy choice nor a simple path. It involved leaving behind everything and everyone I cared about in Bangladesh, but it needed to be done. Back in 2016, members of al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) hacked to death two LGBTQ+ activists in Bangladesh, and openly threatened other queer activists. As someone who was openly gay and had publicly written about LGBTQ+ issues in national newspapers, living in Bangladesh was no longer an option for me. I moved between countries to stay safe, eventually arriving in the United States via a competitive fellowship. At the end of the program, I was faced with the difficult decision of either applying for asylum in the United States or returning to a country where being gay is punishable by law. I chose to apply for asylum.
The U.S. asylum system is a legal immigration process in which a person can seek to stay in the United States if they have a credible fear of returning to their country of origin. If asylum is granted, which can take years, an asylee can then apply for a green card and, over time, become a naturalized U.S. citizen. In accordance with the 1951 Refugee Convention, seeking asylum is a human right, and every person in the world has the right to apply for it if they are fleeing conflict or persecution. They must not be expelled or returned to situations where their lives or freedom would be in danger.
This path to citizenship in the United States is long and treacherous. Yet, thousands of people like me have walked it. While every asylum seeker has a unique journey and different reasons for applying for asylum, they usually do so because they’re escaping conflict, war, violence, or a fear of persecution based on their identity and beliefs. Being a member of a persecuted community means being forced to leave behind all aspects of an identity that makes us who we are. And if we are lucky enough to arrive in the United States, we are immediately required to navigate a system that is slow and confusing, replete with complicated forms, legal setbacks, and many expenses. This becomes even harder when we must learn a new way of life, secure quick employment, and in many cases, become proficient in a new language while simultaneously fulfilling the role of an assimilated and contributing member of the community to which we just moved.
To give you an idea of how anti-immigrant the U.S. legal immigration system is, I will share some of my experiences. For the first six months after applying for asylum, I was not permitted to work while I waited for my employment authorization card (EAD), also known as a work permit. During this period, applicants receive no support to make a living for ourselves or our families. Every two years, I had to renew my EAD, which costs upward of $450. Once asylum is granted, we must apply for a green card, which requires a hefty fee and an intensive medical examination that can cost thousands of dollars. How are we supposed to navigate this system legally when we are not allowed to earn a living for the first few months and while a huge amount of fees are levied upon us for years?
Instead of acknowledging the shortcomings of this system, one of the major criticisms people levy on us is that we are taking from American taxpayers and contributing nothing to the country. Both noncitizens like me, who legally live in this country, and undocumented individuals pay taxes. According to a report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. The irony of the situation is that “more than a third of the tax dollars paid by undocumented immigrants go toward payroll taxes dedicated to funding programs that these workers are barred from accessing.”
I have paid taxes every year that I have lived in the United States. Not only have I earned a living by working hard, but I’ve also tried to make a difference in society through the highly underpaid nonprofit sector. I have put myself out there through my writing to address what we can do better as a society, only to face backlash for speaking up as a noncitizen. I have contributed to making education more queer-affirming so that members of the LGBTQ+ community can feel seen in an increasingly divisive and politicized educational system. I have done everything a so-called model U.S. citizen should do, only to be threatened and dehumanized, while constantly facing the fear of being deported. The arrival of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., a city I have called home for years, is just another example of how we immigrants are seen as a threat to the very communities to which we contribute so much.
Because of President Donald Trump’s policies, the immigrant population in the United States has declined for the first time in fifty years, and it is now harder for people to seek asylum.
As someone who recently obtained asylee status, which gives me a little bit more security in the immigration process, I am grateful to have survived as an openly gay man. Bangladesh continues to uphold its British colonial legacy by penalizing the LGBTQ+ population via section 377 of its penal code, which criminalizes same-sex activities. The country continues to provide little or no protection to its LGBTQ+ citizens, while attacks on this already marginalized group have skyrocketed in recent years. But, I wonder, what is the cost of this safety?
The answer is both simple and complicated. We do it because we want a better future for new generations. We pay taxes, volunteer in our communities, and try to live as law-abiding members of society while waiting years for the United States to accept us as citizens. The trauma of what we escaped and the fear of an uncertain future are our constant companions.
Trump has announced that, in 2026, he plans to reduce the number of refugee admissions to 7,500, mostly limited to white South Africans—a drastically lower number than 2024’s target of 125,000 refugees.
I know that immigrants will make this country stronger and more prosperous. But how can we do so when the already difficult path toward legal immigration keeps changing?