Greg Toppo

USA TODAY

Growing up in metro Atlanta, Yehimi Adriana Cambrón Álvarez could see Cross Keys High School from her bedroom window.

Born in Morelia, in Mexico’s central Michoacán state, a place especially hard-hit by the country’s drug war, she was brought to De Kalb County, Ga., as a child. Cambrón grew up as an undocumented immigrant, one of an estimated 11.3 million. She graduated from Cross Keys and earned a studio art degree in 2014.

She’s now deep into her third year teaching art at her alma mater.

“This has kind of been my dream, to come back and teach here,” Cambrón said on Tuesday as she prepped for classes. “This is a community that I grew up in — this is where I call home.”

Her well-laid plans could soon collapse: Last month, the Trump administration began winding down Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the 2012 Obama administration program designed to protect undocumented immigrants brought here as children.

If lawmakers can’t fix DACA, Cambrón and thousands of teachers like her could face deportation when their work permits expire — in her case, that happens in February 2018.

Her students, she said, are “very aware of what’s happening” with the program. “It’s very real for them.”

Cambrón added: “They’re just in shock that I could be taken away from the classroom like that.”

Nationwide, an estimated 20,000 DACA-eligible teachers — many of them possessing key Spanish-language skills that are in high demand — could be plucked from the classroom if the program is phased out.

More:White House issues list of hard-line immigration demands

Losing that many teachers would have a huge impact on kids, said Viridiana Carrizales of Teach For America, the elite teacher-preparation program that has begun advocating for the program. “We cannot afford to lose so many teachers and impact so many students,” she said. “Every time a student loses a teacher, that is a disruption in the student’s learning.”

Recent findings by the Economic Policy Institute, a D.C.-based think tank backed by labor unions, suggest that public schools are already in a teacher shortage bind: An Oct. 6 report found that given rising student populations, public schools are short by about 327,000 educators.

Just three weeks after he extended an olive branch to Democratic leaders in a bid to fix DACA, President Trump on Sunday sent Congress a long list of demands that he said "must be included" as part of any legislation addressing the status of so-called DREAMers like Cambrón.

The hardline requirements include:

building a border wall;

hiring thousands of border guards;

expanding the use of electronic employment verification systems.

Democrats quickly rejected the demands. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the proposal “cruel and unacceptable to the DREAMers, opposed by the overwhelming majority of Americans, and anathema to the values of our nation itself.”

The stalemate could put the program at risk, but DACA’s long-standing uncertainty has pushed teachers’ groups to play a more active role in pressing Congress to fix it.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten last month called Trump’s move to wind down DACA “a heartless assault on young immigrants and on our communities,” adding, “The young people covered by DACA are woven into the fabric of American society. They contribute to our economic growth and our diversity.”

Soon after President Obama in 2012 proposed the DREAM Act, an executive order that protected immigrants brought to the U.S. before they turned 16, TFA leaders learned that hundreds — and perhaps thousands — of eligible teacher applicants were ineligible due to their immigration status. At the time, TFA rules dictated that applicants had to be permanent residents or U.S. citizens to be considered as “corps members.”

The following year, TFA changed its admissions process to accept undocumented applicants. That year, it admitted exactly two. But now, four years later, TFA boasts 100 “DACAmented” teachers serving an estimated 10,000 students in 11 states. TFA says another 88 alumni are undocumented.

But other organizations that work in schools haven't tweaked their requirements. City Year, which sends young college graduates to serve as support staff to needy schools in 28 cities, doesn’t accept DACA recipients, a spokeswoman said.

Michelle Mittelstadt, spokeswoman for the Migration Policy Institute, the D.C.-based think tank that calculated the 20,000 estimate, said few Americans grasp that DREAMers, as a group, are highly educated, having been schooled and acculturated in the U.S., in most cases.

“I think it’s not well-perceived that this is a population that has largely gone through school in the United States,” she said. “They are in the workforce, and they are in the workforce, in some cases, in middle-skill and higher-skilled jobs.”

Cambrón, the art teacher, agreed: “People do think we’re these criminals who are in hiding, but the reality is that, especially because of DACA, we are your teachers, we are your lawyers. We’re in the professional sphere now. We’re working in the school systems. We’re in the military.”

TFA’s Carrizales noted that her program, which has placed thousands of teachers in U.S. schools since 1990, is “very selective,” with many applicants graduating from the best universities in the nation.

Carrizales, 29, who began working in TFA’s San Antonio office in 2012, had already been on the job for more than a year when TFA in 2013 created a new position focused exclusively on immigration issues and advocacy. She’s now TFA’s managing director for DACA.

“It has been powerful to have our teachers who have DACA status in the classroom, because our young undocumented students can now see themselves in their teachers,” she said.

Carrizales grew up in Dallas — like many DREAMers, she came to U.S. at a young age (she was 11). Fear of being discovered, she recalled, was omnipresent.

“I felt sometimes like I didn’t even want to try in school … if my status was always going to get in the way,” she said.

That stress affects an estimated 3.9 million students in K-12 schools who are either undocumented or have a parent who is undocumented, she said. “How can that kid learn? How can that kid focus in class? How can that kid pay attention when all of these things are happening around them? We cannot, as educators, do our job if our kids are coming to school afraid.”

Christian Aguilar, 24, a middle school bilingual teacher in San Jose, Calif., arrived in with his family from Mexico when he was 10. He grew up in San Jose and now says his DACA ordeal has shown him the strength of his community — especially the strength of his students, many of whom live in mixed-status families themselves, with some members fretting about their immigration status while others live here legally.

"They’re becoming a lot more strong in terms of their emotions," he said. "They told me that they want me to continue being in the classroom and that they support me all the way — and that they’ll just be there for me.”

Cambrón, who is also a muralist, said DACA has given Americans the chance to “see us officially and hear our stories and understand that if people are given the opportunity to pursue their passion and their careers and their dreams, then they will accomplish great things and make great contributions.”

But for her students, it’s a double-edged sword. They see the potential, but they also see the risk to their own family members, many of whom are undocumented.

“They know,” she said. “They know and they feel that fear.”

She has been open about her status since the beginning. Following the recent uncertainty she has begun holding DACA staff training for her colleagues — and discussion groups for her students.

“You build relationships with the students. They open up to you," she said. "I can’t imagine having to leave.”

Follow Greg Toppo on Twitter: @gtoppo