Stories
With Nurse Aides Needed, Trained Dreamer Fears She Will Be Deported
Leyla Sabag is a nurse assistant who is about to start working at a nonprofit clinic for low-income Kansans. “It’s not a job for the weak, definitely — you have to work 16-hour shifts, and you have patients who scream, hit, bite, spit,” she says. “It’s one of those things… Read More
Ohio Student Eyes College, Still Worries About Younger Dreamers
For most of her childhood, Itzel Marquez had no idea she was an undocumented immigrant. Family members had brought her to the United States when she was just 3 years old. When she was 9, she says, “I started hearing about undocumented immigrants on the news, and I asked my… Read More
If Allowed, Dreamer Could Help Ease South Carolina Nursing Shortage
Nineteen-year-old Lenda Vazquez works six to seven days a week at her father’s landscaping business in Gilbert, South Carolina. “I’m pretty much his right-hand man,” she says. Vazquez is an undocumented immigrant, but her protections under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) have allowed her to obtain a driver’s license… Read More
As Reservist Deploys, Fears His DACA Fiancé May Be Deported
Esmeralda Tovar-Contreras is an undocumented immigrant who was brought to the United States from Mexico City when she was 2 years old. Thanks to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which provides qualifying young people like her some protections, the 21-year-old has been able to get a job at a… Read More
New York’s First Undocumented Lawyer: ‘We All Have a Voice’
In 2016, Cesar Vargas became New York state’s first openly undocumented lawyer. It was a major personal accomplishment for Vargas, whose mother brought him to the United States when he was 5 years old, and for New York, which became the third state in the nation to allow undocumented immigrants to… Read More
Dreamer Wants To Teach Kids, Instead Lives in Fear
In 2016, when Laura Perez was granted the right to legally work in the United States, she was finally able to come out of the shadows and,contribute more to her community and family. Perez is one of Utah’s more than 13,600 recipients of Deferred… Read More
It’s the Economy: Nation’s Oldest State Really Needs Its Dreamers
Publicly, Sharon McDonnell’s son’s friend goes by the name “S.” That’s because S is an undocumented immigrant. And although she now has Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a policy that currently shields her from deportation, she cannot be sure how long she will remain protected. None of the country’s… Read More
Dreamer: Given the Opportunity, We Work Hard
In 2012, when Leonel Nieto, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, received the legal right to live and work in the United States, he quickly began achieving the milestones of American adulthood: He bought a house, took out a car loan, and earned a master’s degree in information technology to support… Read More
Caught in Limbo, STEM-Educated Dreamer Ponders a Move to Canada
Ecuadorian immigrant Edison Suasnavas is part of Silicon Slopes—a science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) hot spot that is propelling Utah’s economy. He holds a master’s degree in animal science from Utah State University and works as a molecular oncologist at Arup Laboratories, in Salt Lake City,… Read More
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