Fresno DACA recipient ‘self-deports’ to Mexico after two decades in California
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- DACA recipient Patricia Vázquez Topete self-deported to Mexico after 20 years.
- She cited legal uncertainty and lack of permanent U.S. status as key factors.
- Now pursuing a master’s degree in Spain, she seeks mobility and personal safety.
The decision to “self-deport” was not an easy one for DACA recipient Patricia Vázquez Topete. After all, California has been her home for the last two decades.
“I’ve achieved the American dream, in my perspective. But I started to feel like I was in this cage,” said Vázquez Topete. She has been a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, since 2015. Her work permit wouldn’t expire until 2026 when she’d have to renew her DACA application.
“If I wanted to use Advance Parole now with the current administration, there was uncertainty of being able to legally come back,” she said.
Advance Parole allows DACA recipients to travel outside the U.S. and return legally for humanitarian, educational or employment purposes if the application is approved.
Vázquez Topete said she considered applying for Advance Parole during President Trump’s first term, but took a step back after he tried to end DACA.
DACA, which celebrated its 13th anniversary on June 15, protects undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children from deportation and provides them with work authorization and social security numbers.
The program, which was created in 2012 by former President Barack Obama through an executive order, has been tied in legal battles since Trump tried to end it during his first term.
Vázquez Topete said she asked herself, if she wanted to see her family could she rely on Advance Parole?
Vázquez Topete graduated from Fresno Pacific University in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in political science. She’s worked in advancing human rights, was appointed to different positions by two California governors, and worked for a global bank. But she didn’t want to feel caged and wanted to utilize her skills, visit her family, cross borders without fear, uncertainty and anxiety.
“I didn’t want to be afraid of driving or flying to a work event, which my job requires, to move around regionally, statewide,” she said. “Go to Washington, D.C., what would that look like under this administration?”
With President Trump’s mass deportation agenda and immigration raids across the county, Vázquez Topete said she started to think what would happen if she got pull over by immigration enforcement agents.
“Am I at risk now every time I drive, am I at risk being at an airport?” said Vázquez Topete. “I decided to take the power that I have back. I am a strongly skilled individual and a woman. I don’t come from wealth, I don’t come from educated parents.... This woman, this Dreamer, can really succeed in other places.”
She sold all her belongings in Fresno, including her car.
Then with two carry-ons and a big suitcase, Vázquez Topete took a plane from the Fresno Yosemite International Airport on May 6 and flew back to Mexico to take care of the process for her student visa to Spain.
“It wasn’t that I just got up and left,” she said. “And I want to be able to support people that may be afraid, but I think, you know, there’s a way to succeed in Mexico. There is a way to succeed and go to Spain, which is what I am doing.”
Vázquez Topete is going back to school in Spain for a master’s degree.
“I want to acknowledge that having a family and young children makes things complicated,” she said of undocumented immigrants with families. “That’s a different fear and concern. People may not be able to get up and leave.”
“But I do want other people that may be able to consider a different path for themselves. That’s what I want my story to stand for,” she said. “Was it easy to make the decision? No, it wasn’t.”
She left having a valid DACA status.
As a DACA recipient, there wasn’t a path for her to obtain legal status.
Even an employer-sponsor visa was out of the question, since it is a very challenging process in which employers must demonstrate that there are no other U.S citizens who could do the job, she said.
As a teen, Vázquez Topete said she was taken to speak to a lawyer and would have been able to apply for a U Visa – a nonimmigrant visa in the United States that provides temporary legal status to victims of certain crimes. She had experienced sexual abuse in Mexico. But back then, as a scared teenager, who hadn’t received therapy, she didn’t want to bring shame to her family and tried to protect her family from shame even though it cost her the only possibility of obtaining legal status, she said.
She left her native country because of sexual abuse taking place at her home by a family member, Vázquez Topete said.
She was only 12 years old when she immigrated from Mante, Tamaulipas, Mexico to Sanger, California to live with relatives.
At one point, another family wanted to adopt Vázquez Topete as a teenager, but it couldn’t be done, she said.
“Immigration is very complex,” she said. “Even if you marry a U.S. citizen, there is complexity.”
“I want people to understand that if we had a pathway, so many of us would have taken advantage of it,” she said. “We looked at the options, we are proactive, and we remain undocumented because there’s still not an option.”
“I don’t think it’s as easy as just getting in line,” she said.
Going home
Vázquez Topete said lately she has been asked if she has regretted her decision of leaving the United States.
“I have no regrets,” she said. “Looking at the (ICE) raids right now on social media and in the news, I actually think that I made the right choice for myself right now.”
After not being in Mexico for two decades, Vázquez Topete, 32, said she feels like a 12 year old again.
“Sometime there’s the fear and I have to remind myself that I am a strong woman who is now 32, who doesn’t need to be afraid, who has tools and skills sets,” she said.
Vázquez Topete said while she is happy to be back in Mexico, she is processing things like seeing her mother and sisters in person after years of not being able to do so.
“It’s complex. Being back home, being back in Mexico, that was also a choice that I made coming here,” she said.
Immigrating to the United States
Vázquez Topete said she immigrated to the U.S. for better economic opportunities, but also because she didn’t feel safe at home.
Vázquez Topete was an undocumented student when she graduated from McLane High School in 2011 as valedictorian speaker of her class, before DACA was created.
Vázquez Topete felt fortunate that when she graduated from high school, Fresno Pacific University provided her with a full ride scholarship that allowed her to pursue a higher education.
Her scholarship, though, didn’t cover the cost of housing on campus. She needed to come up with that money every year. During the summers, she would work in the strawberry fields picking the crop in the Salinas area to make ends meet while staying on friends’ couches.
“I was a college student. I had no money, and I had no social security,” Vázquez Topete said.
As a first-generation college student, Vázquez Topete said she struggled, working multiple jobs from cleaning homes to working in the fields, but that was the only way a student like herself could make ends meet.
“I was trying to survive, I was trying to eat, I was trying to pay for transportation,” she said. “I didn’t have a home in the summers.”
Vázquez Topete said she waited after DACA passed to apply to the program because she didn’t’ have the funds to submit the application, which must be renewed every two years.
Vázquez Topete said she received DACA right before she graduated from Fresno Pacific University in 2015.
“It gave me a sense of hope,” she said. “I could use my degree. I was always concerned of how I am going to survive if I have a degree and no work permit.”
Vázquez Topete said it was a relief to get DACA. It allowed her to do internships and policy work in Washington, D.C. with the Washington Office on Latin America, a non-governmental organization that promotes human rights and democracy. She also did a fellowship in California working at the state Capitol as part of the Capital Fellows program.
She had spent her time in the U.S. volunteering and giving back to the community, working in government and building an American Dream for herself.
Now, she is leaving the country and going back to school in Spain to obtain her master’s degree.
“I left knowing that it would be a long time since I could come back, if I could come back,” she said.
“I also see my future not back in the U.S.”
This story was originally published June 29, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
