DACA Dreamer Luis Grijalva Makes it to the 2021 Tokyo Olympics

An 11th-hour decision by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has given hope for an athlete to pursue his Olympic dream in this year’s Summer Olympics. It was a decision that nearly dashed Luis Grijalva’s dreams because of policies inherent in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.

DACA is a government program that gives protection to eligible immigrants who arrived in the U.S. when they were children. DACA does not lead to being granted citizenship but it instead gives protection from deportation and eligibility to work in the U.S.

There are a number of requirements in DACA but the one that is relevant to the case of Luis Grijalva is where DACA recipients cannot return to the U.S. if they leave the country since they do not have legal status but there is an exception. Only by securing a travel document known as advance parole can a DACA recipient be allowed to return but time was not on the athlete’s side. This was Luis Grijalva’s final hurdle before he can participate in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and represent Guatemala.

Luis Grijalva’s journey to the Tokyo Olympics

Born in 1999 in Guatemala, Luis Grijalva and his family moved to the United States when he was only one year old. He has lived in the U.S. ever since but he is neither a citizen nor a legal permanent resident but rather a DACA recipient. He worked hard as an athlete growing up and this earned him a spot in the Northern Arizona University cross country and track team where he became a star runner for the university in the national championship competitions of 2017, 2018, and 2020.

It was during the 2021 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships that Luis Grijalva was able to beat the automatic qualifying Olympic Games standard for the 5000-meter run which is 13:13:50 with his personal best record of 13:13:14 – a second-place position but the third-fastest recorded time in NCAA’s outdoor history. And while he was not able to beat the U.S. record, he was able to beat the Guatemalan national record which makes him eligible to represent his home country for the Tokyo Olympics.

The process for securing an advance parole takes anywhere from 90 to 120 days to finish but Luis Grijalva was only qualified 53 days before the preliminary competitions in Japan. The race to secure his advance parole was not an easy process since time was not on his side and his case was unusual. His story reached media and national attention and he even received support from politicians on Capitol Hill. And sure enough, he received his travel pass.

In his Instagram message, he noted what “an honor and a privilege to represent (his) home country but also be able to be a voice and represent over 600,000 Dreamers like me.” His case is certainly not the first nor is it going to be the last. It exposed some problems and inconveniences that are inherent in the DACA program that can be addressed by the right people so that young people’s dreams are given the chance to be pursued.

The long road for other Olympiads

While the Olympics celebrates humanities’ best athletes through the competitions, the road to the games is not always easy as Luis’ story shows us. A number of athletes endured many challenges to realize their lifelong dreams and here are some of them.

Naomi Graham will be representing the U.S. in Boxing. A native of Fayetteville, North Carolina, she had wanted to be a boxer since she was nine and she will get her chance this year in the middleweight division. It was not an easy road to her dreams as she experienced being homeless for a time after high school. She found an abandoned home where she stayed for some time to try to turn her life around. Some years later, she joined the U.S. military as an ammunitions specialist. That’s right, she will also be making history as the first active-duty female service member in the Olympics, Army Staff Sgt. Naomi Graham. As part of the U.S. Army’s World Class Athlete Program, she won three world championship belts and is currently ranked eighth in the world.

Jordan Windle’s parents died when he was only a year old in Cambodia and he was placed in an orphanage. Jerry Windle in the 1990s was a gay man who dreamed of becoming a father. Jerry recalls calling the number of an adoption agency after reading a similar story. Months later, he will be holding young Jordan, who is struggling to stay alive, in his arms in a Cambodian orphanage. And with Jerry’s unceasing love, Jordan will be part of the U.S. Diving team in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
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