Put yourself in my shoes for a moment.

You’re a child. You’re five years old. You leave the country you were born in for another. You’re with your mother, and all you have is a few belongings, the promise of seeing your father again, and the hope for a better tomorrow.

Once you arrive to the new country, you live near one of its international borders. You do not have legal citizenship status, making you vulnerable.

As you grow older, you also begin to see your queerness showing, in your voice, character, and mannerisms, but you do not quite understand it, or what a gift it will be in your life one day. You carry these secrets with you everywhere you go, unable to speak your truth.

That is, until you develop the courage, learn how to and come out twice: once as undocumented, and another as queer.

My name is Jesus Daniel. I am 24 years old, and I am one of 800,000 Daca recipients, and one of an estimated 267,000 immigrants who are queer and undocumented.

I was born in south-western Mexico on the coast of Guerrero. My mom and I arrived in the San Diego border region in 1998. Since then, my family has built a home on this side of the border while simultaneously sustaining our connections to Mexico by sending remittances, staying in touch via phone calls, Facebook and other digital means.

Soon after our arrival on this side of the border, I learned that my parents and I were undocumented. At that age I did not know the obstacles we would face on our journey to establishing a better life, or the day-to-day anxieties caused by the fear of family separation.

We lived with a paternal aunt and her family before moving out on our own. I began elementary school in 1998 as a first-grader. As I mentioned, I knew we were undocumented but we did not use that language to describe ourselves: we used coded language, spoke of our immigration status as being sin papeles, literally translated to without papers.

Here in the border region – one in five Dreamers live in border counties, and about half of them live in the four southern border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas – our communities are patrolled by thousands of abusive and unaccountable Border Patrol Agents who roam our communities and separate families.

I remember coming into proximity with police officers and Border Patrol agents throughout my life: each time, my body would tense up, the nervousness would grow, and I would force myself to sit up straight and make sure I was “well-behaved”, even though that does not mean anything sitting in a car.

At school, I would proudly share with classmates that I was born in Mexico – and in a way that was also how I let them know I was undocumented. At the time, I assumed that all people born in Mexico did not have papers, so that made me feel less fear about sharing. While I lived with this understanding of my immigration status, I also experienced feeling “different”.

In hindsight these fears feel irrational – but in that moment they were very real, debilitating and scary

I remember being a shy and quiet boy – at least before feeling comfortable to be my whole self. I developed crushes on other boys in my classroom, but was not able to express it, share it, or let it out, in part because I did not understand my feelings. It was not until sophomore year of high school that I started processing my sexuality.

That same year, I started being involved in a local church youth group with other youth my age. Coming face to face with Catholicism and its set of beliefs forced me to poke at my internalized homophobia and self-hate in order to meet my authentic self.

Happening simultaneously, I remember hesitating to share my immigration status with teachers and counselors for fear of this impacting their view of me, my family or my potential to succeed in education.

The same fear gripped me for weeks before I came out to my very close friends. I was afraid of losing them, and fearful that their parents would tell them to stop being my friend.

In hindsight these fears feel slightly irrational – but in that moment in my life they were very real, debilitating and scary.

In May 2013, I was granted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) after Obama’s executive order was announced on 15 June 2012.

As a Daca recipient, paired with my community involvement, I have been able to face my internalized fear of police officers and Border Patrol agents. I have been able to enter the social justice workforce, apply for a California ID and driver’s license, and help financially provide for my mixed status family.

This progress is now in jeopardy, as the Trump administration terminated the program – which is why we are now fighting for a bipartisan Clean Dream Act to protect Dreamers and our families without further militarizing the border region.

In the current political climate, it may be hard to be ourselves in our wholeness – but that is exactly what the world needs from us.

Yes, growing up in the southern border region as undocumented and queer has been challenging. But I could not have imagined that I would be here today, writing an article about my experience to advocate for policies that uplift immigrant and refugee communities.

For those of you reading who are undocumented and/or LGBTQ but not “out,” I want to tell you that you are not alone, not now and not ever. There are others like you out in the world – and you will find them. There is strength in numbers.