For Immediate Release: September 3, 2026
Contact: [email protected]
New “The Frequency” reflection on Substack from TheDream.US COO Dr. Hyein Lee examines the workforce cost of denying Dreamer graduates work authorization
Washington, DC – In a new Labor Day reflection for The Frequency: The Pulse of America’s Dreamers, Dr. Hyein Lee, Chief Operating Officer of TheDream.US, examines the thousands of Dreamer college graduates who have earned degrees and trained for high-need professions but remain unable to fully put those skills to work because they lack work authorization.
Drawing on TheDream.US’s 2026 Alumni Survey Report, In Their Own Words – The Authorization Gap, and her own experience navigating restrictions on her ability to work, Lee makes the case that sidelining Dreamer graduates is not only a loss for them, but for the country that educated and trained them.
Read Hyein Lee’s full Labor Day reflection on “The Frequency” Substack HERE and find key excerpts below:
“Every first Monday of September, America pauses to honor the people who build it. We celebrate the nurse finishing a night shift, the teacher setting up a classroom before the first bell, the civil engineer double-checking a bridge design, the accountant who keeps a small business solvent. These are also the stories of thousands of Dreamer college graduates applying their education and ambition to give back to their communities and the country they call home.
“This year, I want to widen the frame. Because alongside the workers we celebrate, there is a group of Dreamers who have done everything we ask of trained professionals but remain stuck in a talent pipeline due to an authorization gap.”
Lee points to a stark divide between Dreamer graduates with and without work authorization:
“Among graduates with DACA or TPS, 84 percent are earning a full-time income. Among their peers without DACA or TPS, that figure drops to 43 percent. Nearly a third of this group are actively searching for income, compared with just 7 percent of their ‘authorized’ peers. And when we asked whether their current work reflects what they actually trained for, 82 percent of ‘authorized’ graduates said yes. For Dreamers without DACA or TPS, it was 45 percent.
“Read that again with Labor Day in mind. We are honoring work while, in 43 states and the District of Columbia, we are legally barring one in five of these graduates, who arrived here at age four, from obtaining the professional licenses that would let them practice as the nurses, teachers, lawyers, and engineers they spent years becoming.”
Lee argues that the consequences extend well beyond Dreamers themselves:
“It is tempting to see this as a story about Dreamers alone. It is not. It is a story about a country and all of us, Americans, leaving its own investment on the table.
“The United States is short roughly 15,700 nurses a year. We have more than 45,000 teaching positions we cannot fill. We are projected to be short as many as 86,000 physicians by 2036. Meanwhile, we have trained thousands of people for precisely those roles and then told them to sit down. Every unfilled hospital shift and every classroom staffed by a long-term substitute is, in part, a policy choice.”
Lee also reflects on spending 12 years in the United States on a student visa and what gaining the ability to work ultimately meant for her:
“I cannot fully describe how much I yearned for something as ordinary as a work permit, the simple permission to put everything I had learned to use.
“When that door finally opened, and I was given the chance to join TheDream.US as an employee, it changed the trajectory of my life. Not because a job is the whole of a person, but because work is how most of us translate what we know into what we contribute.”
She closes with a call for permanent protections for Dreamers:
“Providing opportunity to immigrants is not a favor we do for immigrants. It is an investment we make in ourselves, in our hospitals, our schools, our tax base, and the neighborhoods where these graduates already live and raise their families.
“So this Labor Day, celebrate the workers. Thank the nurse, the teacher, the engineer, the accountant. But also ask why we are keeping thousands of people who trained for those exact jobs on the sidelines because of a status they had no say in.
“Congress can close this gap. We already have the talent. We already made the investment. All that is missing is the permission to work. Permanent protections for Dreamers, with or without DACA, would turn a decade-long waiting room into a workforce.”
Read Hyein Lee’s full reflection on “The Frequency” Substack HERE.
About TheDream.US
TheDream.US is the nation’s leading organization supporting Dreamers at the intersection of higher education, workforce development, immigration, and advocacy. We’ve awarded over 13,000 scholarships to immigrant youth from 120+ countries and 45 states, with more than 5,000 graduates to date. We partner with close to 80 colleges in 19 states and Washington D.C. to provide scholarships, career support, and access to legal options that help Dreamers break through systemic barriers and achieve social mobility.
Through data, Scholar and Alumni stories, strategic partnerships, and targeted state and local advocacy, we work to expand equitable access to college, professional pathways, and permanent legal status. For more information on TheDream.US, visit www.thedream.us
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