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Armed only with a megaphone, Sandy stood in front of the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) building in San Francisco at a recent demonstration to demand equality for her community.

“The new administration’s deportation system is out to get all of us,” blared Sandy’s voice through the speaker, as she called for an end to the targeted attacks on immigrant communities, which have intensified since the 2016 election. “So we need to stand in solidarity just like we’re here today.”

Roughly 100 people had gathered at the USCIS building on June 5, many holding signs that read, “No human being is illegal” and “Free Hugo and Rodrigo.” Sandy (who is undocumented and requested that her last name not to be used for this story) helped organize the demonstration to raise awareness of Hugo Mejia and Rodrigo Nuñez, two Bay Area men who were detained by immigration agents in May while at work.

Her immigration status doesn’t deter her from fighting for immigrant rights. In 2015, she was arrested by SFPD for occupying Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s San Francisco office in protest of a bill that would violate the city’s Sanctuary City ordinance.

Sandy has also served as an interpreter for monolingual Spanish speakers at immigration rallies.

On June 5, Sandy translated for Yadira Munguia, whose husband of 18 years, Hugo Mejia, was arrested by Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) on May 3 at his job roughly 50 miles northeast of San Francisco.

Mejia and his friend Rodrigo Nuñez were employees of S&R Drywall construction company, working at a hospital located at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California (which is not a sanctuary city). When military officials asked them for I.D. and social security numbers, the men handed over their Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), something many undocumented immigrants use as their social. When officials learned the men were undocumented, they were arrested and detained by ICE agents.

Since then, Munguia has appeared at multiple public rallies, led by youth activists like Sandy, pleading tearfully for the release of her husband and his friend.

This kind of public activism is something Munguia had never considered before the detainment of her husband. Although she’s been in the United States for 16 years, the married mother of three maintained the low-profile lifestyle that many undocumented parents —even those who live in “sanctuary cities” like San Francisco—feel compelled to live.

“We always tried to do things right—not getting into trouble, paying our taxes, not asking anything from the government, always just trying to do things ourselves. Not trying to make ourselves visible,” Munguia told El Tecolote. “My fear is gone because if I want Hugo and Rodrigo to be released, then I have to fight alongside those who are helping me.”

Young, undocumented and unafraid

It was through meeting youth activists like Sandy, who is statewide coordinator for California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance (CIYJA), that Munguia first saw the stark contrast between her undocumented generation and the youth. Unlike their parents who brought them here as children, these undocumented youths are opting for a life of activism and public advocacy.

“I began to speak … [with a CIYJA organizer] and she told me she didn’t have papers, just like me, and I told her, ‘I admire you even more,’” Munguia said in Spanish. “I asked her, ‘Are you scared?’ And she said ‘No.’ I told my friends, ‘I can’t believe these young people, who are undocumented like us, are speaking up and helping numerous people.’ For me, it’s admirable what they’re doing.”

Sandy began organizing in 2011 as part of the DREAM Alliance of Sonoma County, fighting the record number of deportations being carried out during Obama’s presidency. Now under the Trump administration, she is fighting not only deportations, but for the preservation of sanctuary city policies and immigrant rights.

“We know that we are carrying our families on our backs when we do this work,” Sandy said. “We’re doing something that they didn’t have the opportunity to … Especially because now we’re more united, we’re more organized to respond.

The boldness of these undocumented youth has many parents worried.

“Of course it scares me that something may happen to my daughter,” said Sandy’s father, who declined to state his name. “My daughter has always been brave and determined. And from the first moment she became involved [in activism], I saw that … she cared about the problems that all of us immigrants face. For young people, like my daughter, to care and to fight for our rights, it fills me with pride.”

This sort of activism comes at a cost.

In May, Claudia Rueda, a 22-year-old immigration activist from Los Angeles, was detained by border patrol as she was moving her family’s car outside their Boyle Heights home. Rueda was detained, according to Sandy, in retaliation for fighting her mother’s deportation case.

“Her detention has definitely shaken me a little bit,” Sandy said. “Because we’re constantly putting our faces in front of the line. It’s very easy to be singled out and attacked. … But we know that if it’s not us, then it’s going to be somebody else who is going to be attacked.”

The anxiety being felt by immigrants in the current political climate is taking it’s toll, even on those who were inspired by the DREAMer movement during the Obama administration to be more outspoken about immigrant rights and being undocumented.

Augustine, a 24-year-old male originally from Mexico who requested that his real name not be used, is one such immigrant. Augustine’s family immigrated to San Francisco when he was three in search of a better living opportunity.

At one point he felt emboldened enough to serve on the City’s Youth Commission and tell his story to large crowds on multiple occasions.

Since Trump took office, Augustine has become more guarded because he feels that speaking out now could endanger him. But he remains committed to working within the immigrants’ rights movement and supporting undocumented people. A DACA recipient, he currently attends City College of San Francisco (CCSF) and hopes to one day become an immigration attorney.

“I’m trying to make an impact in a meaningful way,” he said. “I want to be a voice for others.”

Augustine and Sandy feel that they, and countless of others brought here as children through no choice of their own, are just as deserving of basic human rights as any other American, and they’re prepared to fight for them.

“I think it comes from not having anything to lose,” Sandy said. “Resisting is our way of living with all these systems that continue criminalizing us and trying to push us out.”

And for that, Sandy’s father is grateful.

“I had a lot of hope that me and my family would be able to legally stay in this country,” said Sandy’s father, who like many parents felt the sting when he DAPA expansions were killed. “This country is really great, and all of us immigrants cooperate to make it great … There should be more sons and daughters that fight for all of us immigrants.”

This story is a collaboration with Feet in 2 Worlds. Feet in 2 Worlds is an award-winning news site and journalism training organization based at The New School in New York. For the past 13 years, Feet in 2 Worlds has brought the work of journalists from a broad range of immigrant communities to public radio and the web. www.fi2w.org. Special thanks to New American Media.