A local mother, a leader in her community, even honored by the State Assembly, shared with NBC 7 the deeply painful and terrifying thoughts that come with being in the country without a legal status.
"Everyone is basically afraid," she said. "It's scary knowing that anything could happen."
President Donald Trump is expected to announce that he will end protections for young immigrants who were brought into the country illegally as children — but with a six-month delay, two sources familiar with the decision told NBC News.
A Paradise Hills mother asked us not to show her face or name her. But there are hundreds of thousands of people like her.
She described to NBC 7, what it was like coming to the country when she was 3-years-old.
"So, there was a little yellow beetle waiting for us. They put us in the passenger side, all the way to the back, and my mom said: 'Don't peek out honey. Don't do any movement.' And we were brought," she described.
Jackie remembers some details but not much.
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"It was really uncomfortable, but we got here," she said. "Sometimes, I talk to my mom and say 'How did you do it?' and she says 'Hun, we had no choice,'"
Growing up in San Diego, Jackie wanted to join the Air Force.
She says it was when she was in JROTC that her dreams came tumbling down when she discovered her parents did not have the proper documentation for her to participate in the program.
"When your parents tell you, 'Hey, babe, by the way, you don't have the same privileges as other kids because of your situation. You cannot attend college. You cannot go to work. You can't do anything basically.'"
The delay in the formal dismantling of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA program, would be intended to give Congress time to decide whether it wants to address the status of the so-called Dreamers legislation.
Now a mother of a young girl, a U.S. citizen, Jackie says her biggest goal is to teach her young daughter how much opportunity she has.
"This is not going to stop us. It's not the end. I'm going to work harder and harder, knocking on doors to show them how I am. I'm not a criminal. I'm not a rapist. I'm not a gang member. My parents taught me well," she said.
Jackie and her husband discussed entering the Obama-era DACA program but worried about handing over their personal information to the government, in case of a change of administration.
She said Monday this change is exactly what they feared.
Undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, potentially qualify for DACA.
Since the Obama administration began DACA in 2012, 787,580 people have been approved for the program, according to the latest government figures.
To be eligible, an applicant must have arrived in the US before age 16 and lived there since June 15, 2007. They cannot have been older than 30 when the Department of Homeland Security enacted the policy in 2012.
If their applications are approved by U.S. immigration officials, DACA recipients can come out of the shadows and obtain valid driver's licenses, enroll in college and legally secure jobs. The program does not offer them a legal path to citizenship or allow them to become legal permanent residents.
San Diego State University student Abigail Tamariz told NBC 7 about learning English when she came to the U.S. in the third grade.
She said after that, she never thought about her status or felt different again--until Trump became president.
"January 2017, I realized I was different. But, we're not really different," Tamariz said. "It made me feel insecure because these are the president's thoughts about us."
