HONOLULU —American citizenship is a status prized by millions of legal and illegal immigrants. Last year, President Obama issued executive orders streamlining the citizenship process,

but little has changed.

The executive orders were supposed to help millions of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., including an estimated 40,000 in Hawaii.

"I am concerned there is a lot of fear again. We hoped that after President Obama's announcements last year we would be in a much better position now with the undocumented community,

and we're not," says Clare Hanusz, Immigration Attorney.

A*****a Saulekaleka arrived in Hawaii in 2003, and now at 20 years old, he's still going through the process of becoming a U.S. citizen.


"One of the biggest problems for somebody like me undocumented is finding documents and stuff because you've been here for so long you just don't have resources to get documents,"

said Saulekaleka.

Many undocumented Hawaii immigrants are either unaware of the services that are available to them or they're afraid to seek them out.

"It's been over a couple months, me coming out here and doing all this because it's scary, it's scary. I don't want to get zoomed off to Fiji or anything like that," said Saulekaleka.

"People don't want to come out for various reasons – be it protecting their families if they're in mixed status family or whatnot; this is really difficult for individuals to deal with," says Shingai Masiya, Aloha Dream Team.

The road to U.S. citizenship has been a challenge for some, but service providers at Saturday’s Immigration Resource Fair continue to encourage legal and illegal immigrants to remain optimistic.

"Even if you can't get that person to a better place right now, if you can explain to them better what the situation is and what their options are or why there aren't any options, at least people leave with knowledge

and knowledge is a form of power," says Hanusz.

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