By Guillermo Camarillo, Communications Intern, Stanford in Government Program Recipient

To honor DACA’s fifth anniversary, the ACLU of Illinois is launching a storytelling project featuring DACA recipients. We hope that by telling these stories, we give agency to more people to tell their own story and challenge the harmful rhetoric coming from the Trump Administration. Here is one story: 

ANONYMOUS

I remember when I got my college acceptance letter - I was over the moon. But I didn’t go to college. I really wanted to but I couldn’t afford it.

Instead, I’ve worked full-time since I was 16-years-old. I found a door-to-door sales job. I worked retail. Then I got very lucky and found a job at a start-up - when I began with them, they only had three employees so it was really new and I didn’t need to show my papers. I was with them for five years until I started working at Yelp. The CEO is very supportive of immigration and has been a part of the conversation on immigration in Silicon Valley.

But nobody in the office knew I was undocumented. I was the only one in my training class that hadn’t gone to college and yet I outperformed the majority of the office. I even got a raise six months in. It was a great experience but at the same time it was so hard to feel successful—even with this great job at this great company—because I couldn’t travel outside the U.S. I can’t share the same experiences as other people because of my immigration status.

My roots are in Chicago. My whole life is here, my family and husband are here. We just bought a house and we depend on my income to support my family. Just to know that my job, our house, our life here could all so easily be taken away from us is terrifying.

By Guillermo Camarillo, Communications Intern, Stanford in Government Program Recipient

To honor DACA’s fifth anniversary, the ACLU of Illinois is launching a storytelling project featuring DACA recipients. We hope that by telling these stories, we give agency to more people to tell their own story and challenge the harmful rhetoric coming from the Trump Administration. Here is one story: 

DIANA

After college, I want to attend law school. I wanted to practice immigration law, but it turns out that immigration defense doesn’t pay that well. Now I am trying to do some type of corporate law, but still plan to do pro-bono work. Right now, there is a big disfranchisement within the immigrant community, not just because of the Trump administration but also because of a bunch of lawyers that have taken advantage of this situation and charge enormous fees to immigrants fearing they might be targeted for deportation. I remember looking into DACA and talking with lawyers - they were going to charge me $2,000 just to fill out the forms. So the immigrant community does not necessarily feel trust in many lawyers. 

A significant reason I want to go to law school is to be able to change some of our country’s immigration laws. When a lot of people hear about immigration and DACA students, they ask “why don’t you just leave and come back legally?” They don’t understand the long process that goes with coming here. They don’t understand there’s a cap on the number of visas they issue every year. They don’t understand that certain things that go into the process itself that can take up anywhere between 3 to 10 years—all just to have documentation to come here or remain here legally.

When some people hear this, they say, “Well, that is the law.” Well luckily, we can change the law. To change people’s views on immigration, we have to change the immigration laws in the first place.