During the summer of 2012, I was working an unpaid communications internship in Tallahassee, Florida, with no hopes of ever getting a job that would put my college education to some use. It was not due to laziness, the economy, or unwillingness to seek a job in my preferred field. It was because I was undocumented.

All of that would change on June 15, 2012, a Friday, when I received a personal call from a White House staffer who told me to turn on the television. President Barack Obama was making his announcement regarding “DREAMers,” or young immigrants who arrived to the United States as children but lacked a legal immigration status. I had spent the past several years advocating for the program, so she wanted to tell me herself.

“I hope you understand that this program will benefit you, your brothers, and other immigrants like you,” the voice on the phone said. “Please apply, recruit others to apply as well. All we ask is that you protect people from being scammed by notarios or fraudulent lawyers.”

The staffer was referring to a new program the White House was announcing to temporarily shield DREAMers from deportation and grant them a work permit and a driver’s license. This was the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, a program that has allowed me to live without the constant fear of deportation for the past five years. My life would change overnight.

And now, under President Donald Trump, the program could be taken away from me and close to 800,000 other DACA beneficiaries. After waffling on whether to sunset the program, Trump may cave in to pressure from several Republican state officials who are threatening to sue the administration if they do not end the program by September 5.

I am a longtime Florida resident, the oldest of three brothers, and a two-time graduate of Florida State University. I am also an undocumented immigrant who considers myself American in all ways but one — on paper.

A life in the shadows before DACA

My family and I came to the United States in 2000, shortly after Hugo Chavez became president of Venezuela. My parents had the foresight to predict the current chaos engulfing the oil-rich nation, which is why they left their family, belongings, and home in exchange for a chance to pursue the American dream. I was 11 years old.

My family’s hopes of eventually becoming US citizens were dashed in 2006 when we discovered that our immigration attorney mishandled our case. Never mind that my family spent six years and thousands of dollars waiting in the infamous “line” immigrants are often told to get in  —  a line conjured in the minds of Americans from old images of Ellis Island but, in today’s world, does not actually exist.

Nor did it matter that my parents had started to build a business of their own and paid taxes. It did not matter that they sent me and my younger brothers to public school in Miami-Dade and Broward County and that as young children, this country was our home. No. The only thing that mattered to the government was that my family could face deportation due to our lack of a couple of papers.

I was 17 years old when our immigration case crumbled. My life changed swiftly. Anxiety quickly set in as part of my daily routine. Everything that I did, whether it was work or academics, always carried the weight of uncertainty that came with being undocumented.

I carried big worries on my shoulders day in and out. Was I really going to school for a degree that I might be unable to use in the future due to my lack of status? Would my savings account come with me if I was deported from the United States? Then there were the everyday threats: fear of getting arrested, detained, and deported for doing something as simple as driving without a driver’s license.

In 2007, after watching my mother cry inside a college admissions office when she discovered that our immigration status meant paying off my college would be a paralyzing financial burden, I became an immigration advocate.

For the past 10 years, I have fearlessly and unapologetically advocated for the rights of the immigrant community. I have helped organize sit-ins inside congressional offices in support of the Dream Act, legislation that would allow young immigrants like myself to obtain a legal and permanent immigration status in the United States. I have collected hundreds of thousands of signatures denouncing Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies and attacks, a clear expression of my First Amendment right of free speech. And I have lobbied for in-state tuition for undocumented students in Florida, an effort that earned Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s personal recognition back in 2014.

I am proud of my work as an immigration advocate, mainly because it has allowed me to overcome my fear of being deported, but also because it has allowed me to help families across the United States deal with the depression that comes with being undocumented.

However, I am even prouder of the obstacles I have been able to overcome as an undocumented immigrant.

Ending DACA would disrupt the lives of nearly a million young immigrants

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which was announced by President Obama in 2012, provided nearly 800,000 young people with the opportunity to live free from the fear of deportation. It also gave to them a sense of freedom, providing work permits and driver’s licenses for these young immigrants.

I have had the opportunity to meet so many wonderful DACA beneficiaries throughout my years as an immigration advocate. My friend Reyna Montoya is a local organizer in Arizona and a 2016 Soros Justice Fellow. Thanks to DACA, Reyna was able to teach high school students and participate in the Teach for America program. And just like Reyna, there are countless other young immigrants who have shown incredible passion and ambition for a variety of causes.

There is Yuriana Aguilar, an undocumented postdoc who is leading cardiovascular research at University of California, Merced, thanks to DACA. And there is Denise Rojas, a DACA beneficiary and student medical student at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who was awarded Soros Fellowship for New Americans last year.

I remember feeling a sense of relief when my work permit arrived in February 2013. My DACA had just been approved, and all I could think about was the amount of possibilities that would be immediately available to me. I would be able to go to school without fear of deportation, get a paying job with benefits, and feel like my life had purpose once again — no longer was I bound by the fear and anxiety that plagued me for years. Now, even if for two-year intervals at a time, I would be able to seek out new and better opportunities to improve myself and my community.

That freedom that young undocumented immigrants have enjoyed for the past five years has yielded significant gains for the United States. Thanks to DACA, young immigrants have been able to pursue higher education, have started their own businesses, while others continue to work and contribute back to their communities. All of these young people are aspiring Americans, who are working day and night to make use of their temporary deportation protection to give back to, not take from, the country they call home.

My parents took a great risk for my future. It’s what families do. My family and I do not have a pathway toward citizenship, not today, tomorrow, or ever. That is why DACA is so important.

Ending DACA means disrupting the lives of almost a million people. Every single DACA beneficiary would be stripped of the ability to live in a normal life, from meeting financial obligations like mortgages to driving without fear. They’ll also become potential targets of Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation tactics.

Right now, DACA beneficiaries, often known as DREAMers, enrich this country with their talents, culture, and determination. All they want is for this country to allow them to work and study without using them as targets for deportation or prey for the white supremacists who wish to see them sent back to a country that they do not know.

Juan Escalante is an undocumented immigrant and DACA beneficiary. He loves pineapple on pizza, black coffee, and public radio. You may find him taking photos around Tallahassee, Florida, whenever he is not advocating for immigration policies at the state or national level. Find him on Twitter at @JuanSaaa.

This article is adapted from an open letter originally published on Medium.

First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.

As a young boy, I remember accompanying my parents to visit their accountant and seeing them turn over large folders, neatly organized, with all of their tax forms and corresponding documents. My mother would tell me her priority was to show the government our family was contributing, so that when it came time to become legal permanent residents, and later US citizens, there would be no questions about our contributions to the country.

I have lived in the United States for the past 17 years, half of that time as an undocumented immigrant. Paying taxes has, at times, felt like a contradictory experience for me.

My parents, who became undocumented immigrants after losing their immigration status in 2007, continue to pay their taxes to this day. Just like me, they have always abided by the simple belief that regardless of their immigration status, they have to do right by the country that has given their family a better life and opportunities.

No matter what Donald Trump and his anti-“illegal” immigrant supporters may think, there is plenty of evidence pointing to the fact that undocumented immigrants like my parents are just as American as anybody else — especially when it comes to fulfilling our responsibility of diligently paying our taxes on a regular basis.

“If we are to be deported, at least I hope the government takes into consideration the fact that we have always paid our taxes.”

My family arrived to the United States in the year 2000 in hopes of opening their own business, fleeing political unrest and economic instability in the early years of Hugo Chávez’s presidency in Venezuela. I was 11 years old at the time, while my two younger brothers were 9 and 7, when we moved into a small apartment in a suburb of Miami.

During my first six years in the US, I lived like any other regular middle school–aged kid. I went to school, skateboarded in the evening with my friends, and attempted to integrate as much as possible into my new country and culture. Then in 2007, I became undocumented the day my parents lost their immigration status.

What happened was my family’s immigration attorney mishandled our case. She misfiled forms and gave us poor advice, which resulted in the rejection of our green card application. Ironically, even when immigrants try to get in “line” and do things the “legal way,” there are still plenty of pitfalls that could place them on a fast track to deportation. My entire family became removable from the United States at any point in time.

Scared of what our future in the United States would look like without the proper documentation, my parents decided to recommit to their original reason for coming here: to provide a better life for my brothers and me. That goal, of course, included abiding by the laws of this country and contributing back through our taxes.

To this day, I follow this philosophy. I have never failed to file my taxes. In fact, paying my taxes is one of the few experiences that makes me feel unbound by the constraints of my lack of legal status. I live under a daily reminder that DACA, the Obama-era program that allows me to drive, work, and live free from the fear of deportation, could be terminated by the Trump administration at any point in time. Paying taxes reaffirms my commitment to this country and proves that undocumented immigrants, like my family and me, are not the freeloaders Republicans make us out to be.

Growing up, I recall my parents feeling the same kind of way. “Ay, hijo,” my mother would tell me from time to time, “If we are to be deported, at least I hope the government takes into consideration the fact that we have always paid our taxes.”

Paying taxes as an undocumented immigrant comes with its own complications

Filing taxes may be a relatively painless process for many Americans, but for immigrants like me, tax season always brings a new set of challenges, questions, and, in some instances, concerns. Unfortunately, many Americans often forget about the tax contributions undocumented immigrants make on a regular basis. That becomes a problem when undocumented people like me try to use tax services and are met with confusion and bad information.

A couple of years ago in grad school, I had a conversation with the university’s office of financial services. After requesting a specific tax form, the office told me that the computer system had not generated a form due to my immigration classification in their records.

“Are you sure you need this form?” the financial services officer stated, almost in disbelief that I intended to file my taxes. I replied with a simple, “Yes.” Evidently she had never seen a situation like mine before.

A visit to a local accountant that year prompted even more questions, despite having all of the forms and paperwork required to file my taxes. The accountant asked why I had been without health insurance for a specified period of time, and told me I could be penalized under the Affordable Care Act. “I do not qualify for the ACA. I am an undocumented immigrant,” I revealed to the tax preparer.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that the tax preparer had no idea what I was talking about. I used my phone to navigate to the National Immigration Law Center’s website, and showed her that undocumented immigrants, or “illegals” as the tax preparer repeated, were exempt from any ACA penalty. The accountant finally agreed to move on to the next step in my tax filing process.

This would not be the first time I ran into this situation. One of my younger brothers, who is also undocumented, was fined by his tax preparer for not having any medical insurance. After returning to his tax preparer’s office with that same National Immigration Law Center webpage pulled up on my phone, he was refunded his $90 penalty.

It’s troubling how many tax preparers I’ve come across who are unaware of this exemption. It makes me wonder how many undocumented immigrants across the country are penalized and forced to pay fines for not having health insurance as required by the ACA. It just goes to show you the lack of awareness that some undocumented Americans may have about their taxes could lead to further pitfalls in their filing process.  

The tax dollars of undocumented immigrants are, unfortunately, fueling the Trump agenda

Donald Trump, who ran on a campaign demonizing “illegal” immigrants, is nearing his 100 days benchmark as president of the United States. The American people have yet to see his tax returns. Yet undocumented immigrants like Belen Sisa are using Tax Day to reveal how much they contribute to the United States. The hypocrisy is simply unmeasurable.

Regardless of whether you believe Trump’s excuses for withholding his tax returns, the truth is that undocumented immigrant do in fact pay their fair share of taxes.

A new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that undocumented immigrants, the same people Trump referred to as drug dealers, murderers, and rapists, contribute $11.74 billion in state and local taxes.

Even more admirable is the fact that many undocumented immigrants risk their lives and deportation in order to work and generate the income necessary to pay taxes. Yet Trump’s un-American and racist deportation policies want to build a wall, unleash a deportation force, and incarcerate undocumented immigrants using the very tax dollars they are contributing. He wants to remove undocumented parents who are dropping off their kids to school or are making their way to work.

Undocumented immigrants also contribute billions to the Social Security program without receiving benefits unless they are able to adjust their immigration status. Yet Trump claimed on the campaign trail that illegal immigrants are being treated better than veterans in our country. This is flat out false.

Is that the kind of values our country should be proud of? Where we punish, and deport aspiring Americans for attempting to work and provide a better life for their loved ones while contributing back to our country through taxes? I say it is not.

Here’s the truth: The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that the 11 million undocumented immigrants nationwide contribute an average of 8 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes, which is comparable to the state and local tax rate of middle-income taxpayers.

Moreover, that same report projects that if all undocumented immigrants residing in the United States were given legal status as part of comprehensive immigration, their state and local tax contributions would increase by an estimated $2.1 billion a year.

Our current president may see undocumented immigrants as nothing but “illegal aliens” who should be swept up when he “takes the shackles off” the deportation force. And yet we are the ones willing to work and contribute, against all odds, to the country we call home.

I am an undocumented immigrant, and unlike President Trump, I am willing to show my tax returns. Will the president of the United States of America demonstrate that he contributes his fair share just like undocumented immigrants like me?

This essay is adapted from an article originally published in the Tallahassee Democrat.

Juan Escalante is an undocumented immigrant and DACA beneficiary. He loves pineapple on pizza, black coffee, and public radio. You may find him taking photos around Tallahassee, Florida, whenever he is not advocating for immigration policies at the state or national level. Find him on Twitter at @JuanSaaa.

First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.