Since President Trump’s election, Axel Herrera has seen an increase in local police traffic checkpoints across the North Carolina community. As a DACA recipient, Axel has legal protection from deportation, but some of his friends and family have already been detained or deported after a random traffic stop, and many of his community’s undocumented members now live in constant fear. “It creates an adversarial environment,” Axel says. “It’s clear what the government is trying to do.”
Axel is 27 years old. He has lived here since he was seven years old after his family left Honduras in search of a better life. When Axel achieved DACA status, he felt that he had finally achieved his family’s dream. He won a scholarship to Duke University, becoming the first person in his family to attend university, graduating with multiple awards and prestigious council internships.
He became the director of North Carolina’s citizen engagement for Mi Familia en Acción, a nonprofit supporting the Hispanic community. Over the past few years he has enrolled citizens to vote, created youth programs, and guided immigrants in search of education and professional opportunities. “All I ever wanted was to belong and give something back,” he says.
But the new political reality was a blow. The ongoing challenges to DACA’s legality could put Axel’s protection from deportation at risk. Axel must renew his DACA status and employment permit every two years. And while he rushes to process the paperwork just before Trump takes office, he has no way of knowing whether it is still possible when his current status expires in 2026. “It’s all in the air right now,” Axel says. “I’m very worried about the future.”
One possibility is that the court can keep DACA in place, but can revoke the DACA recipient’s “right to work.” Because of that uncertainty, Axel is working hard to get away from work and back to school. This fall he left North Carolina for Yale, where he won a scholarship to study business and public policy. “It’s a great opportunity, but it’s also a hedge against losing my status,” he explains. “If I lose my job approval, being a student can buy me for a while and find another path to move forward.”
He feels torn apart by leaving his community behind. Everyone he knows is always on WhatsApp and assesses police situations whenever they leave the house. He knows many young Venezuelans, whose humanitarian parole has recently been revoked, preventing them from working or studying. Over the past six months he has seen his family torn apart by attacks and deportations, or he is too afraid of ice to go to school. “I will always talk to young people whose entire future is on the chopping block,” Axel says.
But despite the current protections of the Axel, “there is a looming feeling that things can get worse quickly,” he says. Under Trump, anti-immigrant sentiment and policies have become more entrenched. He is particularly concerned about the long-term consequences of new state laws requiring sheriffs to work with ice. And he fears the future of him and his family. “Twenty years from now, we’re barely hurting the surface of dealing with status issues,” he says. “It’s never finished, and the Trump administration is rolling back many of the progress we’ve made.”
