Simon Mendoza-Moreno works as a primary care provider at a community health centre in Wenatchee, Washington, mainly serving low-income patients. The 25-year-old is also an undocumented immigrant, who was six months old when his parents brought him from Mexico.
He is able to legally work in the US under Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) programme.
Worried about the future of Daca under president-elect Donald Trump,
Mendoza-Moreno and thousands of others are posting on social media using the hashtag #WithDACA to show what they’ve been able to achieve because of the programme.
“We are not criminals,” he said. “We were highly vetted through the Daca application process.
We are contributing to this country just like any other American.”
Mondoza-Moreno wrote on Facebook that with Daca he was able to get his graduate medical degree as a physician assistant.
He said he started working at the community health centre on election night and that most of his patients were Mexican immigrants, like his parents.
“It has always been my dream to serve my community as a bilingual and bicultural provider, but I fear that may soon be taken away if Daca ends,” he wrote.
Gaby Pacheco, a Daca recipient and a nationally known immigration activist, helped launch the campaign.
She said the goal was to get Trump supporters and others to see “what happens when immigrants’ talents are unleashed”. The programme, she says, allowed her to buy her first home, pay more in taxes, and get a job that provides her with health insurance.
She works as programme director for TheDream.US, a scholarship fund for immigrant youth.
There are about 741,500 young immigrants who have been approved for Daca since it launched in 2012, according to the latest data available from US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The programme, which is renewable every two years, temporarily shields young immigrants from deportation and allows them to legally work.
The National UnDACAmented Research Project, a multi-year study that measures the effects of Daca, finds that the programme’s recipients have experienced a significant increase in economic opportunities.
Many have been able to get higher-paying jobs, become homeowners, obtain driver’s licenses and open bank accounts.
Trump has promised to sign away the programme on his first day in office; as president, he could direct USCIS to not accept any more initial or renewal applications for Daca.
On Monday, citing the benefits of Daca, Obama urged Trump and his incoming administration to “think long and hard” before ending the program and “endangering” young immigrants benefiting from it.
“These are kids who were brought here by their parents,” the president said.”They did nothing wrong.
They’ve gone to school.
They have pledged allegiance to the flag.
“By definition, if they’re part of this programme, they are solid,
wonderful young people of good character,” he continued. “And it is my strong belief that the majority of the American people would not want to see suddenly those kids have to start hiding again.”
Aldo Martinez, a 23-year-old Daca recipient living in Florida, wrote on Facebook that the programme allowed him to become a paramedic.
“ #WithDACA I have been able to become a paramedic who works in the ER to provide emergency medical services to my community, as well as being able to continue my path towards becoming a trauma surgeon.”
Martinez was working the night of the election, and recalled feeling “hopeless” and “defeated” when the results came in.
“My heart sank to my stomach when I heard Donald Trump had won,” said Martinez. “I called my parents, and I couldn’t get any words out.”
Trump made immigration a top issue in his campaign, saying he would build a border wall along the US-Mexico border.
As part of his 10-point immigration plan, he promised to “immediately terminate” Daca and to ramp up deportations.
But after winning the presidency, he seemed to soften his tone on immigration.
In an interview with the CBS programme 60 Minutes on Sunday, he said he wanted to focus on deporting immigrants with criminal records, which he estimated to be up to three mn.
He also said once the border was secured, he would determine what to do with the “terrific people” who were in the country illegally but had otherwise clean criminal records.
Jaime Ballesteros, a 24-year-old teacher and Daca recipient from the Philippines, said he believed there was a real possibility that Trump could keep his promise to end Daca and increase deportations.
But he said he tried to stay positive for his seventh grade students, many of whom told him they were afraid their parents might get deported.
Ballasteros wrote on Twitter that Daca had allowed him to earn a master’s degree in education; a member of Teach for America, he teaches chemistry at a charter school in East Los Angeles.
Karina Alvarez, a 27-year-old teacher and Daca recipient who posted on Twitter that DACA had allowed her to support her son on her own, said she tried to give a similar message to her second grade students in San Antonio, Texas.
But she said it had been “difficult for me to tell them it’s going to be okay” when she has had a hard time believing that’ll be the case.