This is why I am leaving the United States. I am 29. I have waited 24 years for a solution. Like all DACA recipients, I have been living my life in two-year increments — the duration of my temporary status. I will no longer keep waiting for the idea of a pathway to citizenship.

In my case, being undocumented is a civil violation. Undocumented immigrants who self-deport after spending over 180 days in the United States face a three-year bar on re-entry, while those like me who have spent over a year in the country are barred for 10 years. For trying to find a solution to an untenable situation and freedom from uncertainty, I will be banished.

Leaving the United States is deeply saddening. The 10-year bar is the most painful aspect, as I will not be able to visit family and friends. I cannot attend graduations, weddings or funerals. I will especially miss my grandmother — who helped raise me and is my best friend — as I don’t know how often I will see her after I depart. If I stay, I’m waiting on the Supreme Court decision: I will either be able to continue my life in limbo as a DACA recipient or my status will phase out.

Congress has the ability to remove these bars, a remnant from the Clinton era, which would open up pathways for possible return. It would, for instance, allow for employment sponsorship, visas to continue working in the fields in which we’ve made inroads. And most important, it would allow us to reunite with our families, friends and neighbors. It would mean we could come back “legally.” Two Democratic presidential candidates, Julián Castro and Elizabeth Warren, have pledged to remove the bars under their immigration proposals. They would have to petition Congress to do so.

Depending on the outcome of the 2020 elections, there could be a push for immigration legislation, but whether it will include DACA recipients, piecemeal or comprehensively, I do not know. It’s not guaranteed anything will pass. No one knows what might happen, but I do know that I’ve become exhausted by putting my life on hold for a promise of permanent status that might never be fulfilled.

The ugly politics of the United States leave me with no desirable choice. I no longer wish to be a bargaining chip for a border wall. I am no longer willing to be another sob story to win votes. I can no longer go to bed every night with the anxiety of such an unsecure future. But I am privileged that by chance I was born in a high-income country to which I can easily return. I am privileged to have the agency to leave.

Isn’t that the great irony? To live the American dream of opportunity and autonomy, I must leave.