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“I'm not giving up,” writes Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient Martín Batalla Vidal about Donald Trump’s disgraceful decision earlier this week to end the program and leave the lives of 800,000 immigrant youth—many of whom know no other place but the United States as their home—up in the air. “In fact, I'm suing”:
… With DACA, I was able to take college classes. I started earning more in my job and paying more in taxes. After so many years of working hard on her own to support us, it's my turn to take care of my mom. I can do that now because of DACA.
My work at a nursing home facility feels meaningful. Every day, I help people with health issues — from car accident injuries to brain tumors, and everything in between — get better. When I was young, I saw how my mother was treated for a hernia at the hospital, when none of the doctors could speak to her. I was shocked a doctor could not communicate with her patient. I want to help take care of people like my mom.
I was working on Tuesday when Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the termination of DACA. I was with patients and couldn't listen to his speech. Friends were texting me throughout the day, sharing their fears with me. I wanted to cry at work, but I knew that I couldn't give up.
“I knew that we needed to fight,” he continued. Batalla Vidal had already filed a court challenge last year when Texas blocked an Obama administration move that would have expanded his work permit from two years to three years. Following Sessions’s DACA announcement—one that Trump was too cowardly to do himself—Batalla Vidal “asked the court to amend my earlier challenge to charge that the administration’s termination of DACA violates federal law.”
”This president may think he can knock us back or kick us out,” Batalla Vidal writes in his Washington Post editorial, “but this is our country, too, and we aren’t going anywhere.”
Like many other DACA recipients and immigrant youth, Batalla Vidal had no idea he was undocumented until he was in high school and was looking for higher education opportunities (think of how few times you probably asked about your Social Security number as a teen):
In 2008, I was preparing to become my family’s first high school graduate and had started to think about college. Then my mom sat me down and told me. What had once seemed like a world full of opportunity shrank dramatically. Without a Social Security number, I wasn’t eligible for financial aid or most scholarships. Even in-state universities were just too expensive for my family without some assistance.
I didn’t want to tell many people about being undocumented. Even in a city of immigrants such as New York, you can feel vulnerable. But I was determined to get to college. After graduation, I began to work so I could save money for tuition. I worked when I could, saving as much as I could.
Batalla Vidal was nervous about applying for DACA when former President Barack Obama announced it in 2012, but he “finally worked up the courage and applied in 2014” and saw his life change after he was able to pursue educational and professional goals. Most importantly, he’s been able to help his single mother, who sacrificed so much for her four boys.
“After hearing the news about DACA,” he continues, “my mom told me to be strong and not to give up. She said when we fall down, we get back up to fight—and that’s exactly what my lawyers and I will do when we have a hearing on this case next week. I’ll see you in court, Mr. President.”
Batalla Vidal joins 16 states and Washington, D.C. in filing or planning to file legal challenges to Trump’s “wrong-headed” decision to attack undocumented immigrant youth, but is notable in itself because it puts a human face on the legal proceedings.
"Losing DACA would have a dramatic impact on my life,” Batalla Vidal told CNBC. “It would prevent me from being able to take on major professional or academic goals, make me unable to work legally, and put me at risk of being deported and separated from my family.”
Below, more Batalla Vidal’s story from immigrant rights group Make The Road New York: