DACA recipient leaves country to chase American dream — now in Spain and México | Opinion

Patricia Vázquez Topete is the person America needs for its future. She graduated from Fresno Pacific with a bachelor’s degree, worked as regional vice president/community relations for a major bank and was appointed by two California governors to statewide positions.

The 32-year-old Fresnan will move to Spain at the end of the summer to study for a master’s degree in international business and global management.

In early May, she self-deported to México after living in the United States for 20 years.

“I’ve achieved the American dream, in my perspective,” Vázquez Topete told María G. Ortiz-Briones, who writes for Vida en el Valle and The Fresno Bee. “But I started to feel like I was in this cage.”

Vázquez Topete, who was a valedictorian at McLane High, benefited from President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allowed her to obtain a work permit and avoid deportation. She was set to renew her DACA application next year.

Her decision to return to México – where she saw her mother for the first time in two decades – was most likely made when President Donald Trump won his second term last year.

“If I wanted to use Advance Parole (permission to travel back to México) now with the current administration, there was uncertainty of being able to legally come back,” she said. “I didn’t want to be afraid of driving or flying to a work event, which my job requires, to move around regionally, statewide. Go to Washington, D.C., what would that look like under this administration?”

Her dream, she said, is no longer in the U.S. “Now, my dream is in another country.”

“There’s a way to succeed in México. There is a way to succeed and go to Spain, which is what I am doing.”

Vázquez Topete has no regrets about her decision. “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.”

If only folks in the Trump administration had that much insight.

Tough talk isn’t the solution

While Vázquez Topete was planning her departure, this is what the Trump administration was doing:

▪ Terrorized the immigrant communities in Los Angeles, where masked men whisked away a woman selling tamales, car washers, day laborers hanging around a Home Depot parking lot looking for work, and gardeners. They are among the estimated 2,000 immigrants in the region who have been arrested since June 6 by federal agencies, according to The New York Times. More than half have no criminal record.

▪ Bragged about the construction of Alligator Alcatraz in the Florid Everglades. The Department of Homeland Security, on its X page, posted a photo of four alligators with ICE caps outside a prison fence. “Coming soon!” said the caption.

▪ Customs and Border Enforcement promoted its app for undocumented residents to leave voluntarily. “Use it now – or you will be found and deported with zero chance of returning.”

Meanwhile, Trump keeps flip-flopping on whether to call off immigration raids of farms and other businesses that rely heavily on undocumented labor. Trump said on FOX News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that his administration is developing a temporary pass for undocumented immigrants who work in certain industries.

A couple of weeks ago, Trump said farmers shouldn’t suffer from immigration raids and indicated he would relax enforcement. Since then, federal officials have shown up at some fields to detain farmworkers.

It is unknown how many people have self-deported. In mid-May, DHS said 64 people had accepted a government-funded flight to their home countries as part of “Project Homecoming,” which included free travel and $1,000.

There are more than 530,000 active DACA recipients like Vázquez Topete in the country, according to the President’s Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. About 150,000 of them live in California.

Many of these individuals have college degrees or careers. They are barred from federal assistance like scholarships, Medicaid and food stamps. In 2022, DACA recipients and their households contributed nearly $2.1 billion to Social Security and Medicaid, according to the Center for American Progress.

The U.S. needs more people like Vázquez Topete and fewer of the MAGA crowd that thinks Trump’s deportation campaign is the correct elixir for what ails the country.