Just 25 years old, Mahe Vakauta of Ewa Beach has never known the benefit of time on his side.

Quick to laugh, humble and reflexively self-deprecating, the aspiring musician and would-be pastor arrived in Hawaii with his family from Tonga in 1992. In the years since, Vakauta and his family have enjoyed stable, productive lives rooted in hard work and religious faith.

But while his parents and half-dozen older siblings have each been able to become U.S. citizens, Vakauta, a graduate of Campbell High School, has been left adrift by harsh immigration policies and a muddle of bureaucracy and red tape.

"It can get really depressing when I think about it," Vakauta says. "But I have a great support system of family and friends. That’s what keeps me going."

Vakauta and his parents applied for citizenship when he was 18. Three years later Vakauta’s parents received their green cards, and Vakauta was given an employment card and told to hold on until the rest of his application was processed.

But there was a problem. In the years that it took to process his parents’ applications, Vakauta had turned 21. In the parlance of immigration lawyers, he had aged out and was no longer eligible to be processed as the child of immigrants.

With his status in legal limbo, Vakauta occupied himself with the things he knew best. He took whatever work he could find, from building rock walls to helping out on his brother’s Hawaii island orchard. He learned guitar from a friend and began playing music for Harris United Methodist Church. And he prayed.

Vakauta has friends who are in the same situation, and they keep track of the national immigration debate and the status of proposed reforms. They pull close together and tell one another to hold on each time they hear of another immigrant child who committed suicide rather than be deported to a home country they know nothing about. They joke about getting married just to stay in the U.S.

Vakauta got a temporary reprieve last year with establishment of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, through which Vakauta is allowed to remain in the United States (and continue pursuing full citizenship) until he is 30.

What happens after that is uncertain.

Vakauta works the graveyard shift as a supervisor at a security company, but he really wants to be a pastor at his church. He wants to help support his parents in their retirement years. He wants to get married for all the right reasons.

For now he waits and hopes that imperfect fixes to a broken immigration system will produce a miraculous happy ending before his time runs out.

"I have faith," he says.

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Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.