"We are American. We're just waiting for our country and our laws to catch up to that fact," says Jin Park, the first DACA recipient to be awarded the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. pic.twitter.com/c8EU4sxk5L — New Day (@NewDay) November 23, 2018

(CNN) A Rhodes Scholar who is protected by a program to shield undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children said Friday he is confident people will recognize the contributions made to the US by people like him.

Harvard student Jin Park is the first undocumented immigrant to win the coveted grant that allows a small handful of extremely accomplished postgraduate students to study at the University of Oxford.

Park has a Korean passport but doesn't have a US passport, and said he is consulting with lawyers to figure out how he will be able to return to the United States once he has traveled outside of the country to complete his scholarship at Oxford University in England.

Last year, the Trump administration said it was ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, punting the responsibility of finding a permanent fix to Congress. Earlier this month, a federal appeals court upheld a ruling blocking the Trump administration from ending the Obama-era program, likely setting up a Supreme Court fight.

Park said after completing his scholarship, he hopes to come back to America and "work as a part of a public health department and to create evidence-based policy to improve the health and the outcomes of undocumented immigrants in America."

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