I’m Benito, I’m from Sonora, Mexico, and I’m a Dreamer. I came in the U.S. at the age of ten. I consider California home.

Life without DACA was like living constantly in the unknown. For example, I remember going to my fifth grade class and think about what would happen if my mom or dad got deported right then, or what if as soon as I started heading back home I got deported? So there was always that fear of uncertainty, of not knowing what to do in case that happened.

I got DACA when I was in a sophomore in high school. Once given the opportunity to step into a college level where I had nothing to lose, I got a scholarship that covered college. And with DACA I can work. I became a person with more confidence. There’s no fear now in so many things.

My DACA expires on January 2019. So that right now means not being able to continue working once that date passes if I can’t renew it. That would mean that I would have to leave my current work position, and I wouldn’t be able to make an income for my family. That is why it is so important that DACA renewals are still available.

I’ve met a lot of Dreamers recently who work in big companies thanks to the fact that we have DACA. We make things move through our code that we write for big companies. Losing DACA would mean losing the opportunity to make those huge impacts that affect this country.

Dreamers in technology bring something that others don’t see, something that a lot of U.S. people don’t see. A lot of times we think that there’s only one way to a solution, but then if you work with a lot of different minds, a lot of different people with different backgrounds, and you get together and start talking about all your ideas, we can create this huge chart which shows a bunch of different case scenarios and outcomes for the problem. And Dreamers in technology are a part of that.