I am an undocumented immigrant living in the age of Trump. In 1998, I was brought to the United States from Portugal at the age of 10 months. I grew up mostly oblivious to the fact that I was undocumented, that I didn’t have the papers necessary to live a normal life.

I remember that the parents of my friends would drive places all the time, but mine would avoid driving as much as possible. Other families would fly out to vacations while we would forego vacations altogether. But I didn’t know why.

As a young child, my parents would often mention that we were ilegais, but at first I was unable to grasp the impact this word would have on my life. Sometimes people would call my father an “illegal”, using it as a slur towards him. They would use his immigration status to gain an advantage over him, especially when he first started working as a mason. Sometimes I wouldn’t see my father for weeks, as he had to work long hours and long distances away from home for a subsistence wage. I worried for him, my mother and for my own future.

I always feared of what would become of my life. I worried whether I would ever be allowed to drive, I worried that I might never get a job or have the opportunity to finish high school. Those were all pervasive thoughts in my 13-year-old mind. Fortunately, in 2012, President Barack Obama took executive action, signing a memorandum that granted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca).

Deferred Action has allowed me to at least survive, allowing me to work, drive and pay taxes. But it hasn’t given me peace of mind. I worry about what will happen after 8 November. I worry that I will be forced out of the only home that I’ve ever known. It also hasn’t freed me from the vitriolic rhetoric that I am regularly subjected to.

People like me have been told to “go home” – home to places that we don’t know, that we have never been to, that we have no recollections of. Some even say things like: “Go kill yourself”. That kind of callous taunting completely disregards human dignity.

Being attacked has not discouraged me, though I often ask myself: why me? These questions have led me to learn about politics, to search for an answer to these questions. It saddens me that hatred of minorities exists after all of these years. It saddens me that I’ve been hearing the same hateful words, the same tirades over and over again.

Most Americans can recite the common attack lines used against undocumented immigrants. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And then there are the proposed solutions. Build a wall. Deport them all. But what is oft-neglected is whether this rhetoric has any basis in reality.

Many suggest that I should leave, that I should be deported, that my parents should be deported. It is assumed that we do not pay taxes. It is assumed that we do not contribute. But my parents have built their entire lives here – they have invested in their own small business, created jobs and built up their own success by pursuing the American dream. The vast majority of undocumented immigrants here have contributed to their communities. And yet, Trump wishes to deport them. Is that really in America’s interest?

This is why I’m anxious for my future, and for the future of many other undocumented children and their families. I’m worried that the rhetoric will trump the facts, that innocent people will be deported in the name of political expediency.

I hope that America can do better, that we can address the dire issue of poverty, of income inequality, of the jobs crisis without resorting to demagoguery and divide-and-conquer strategies that only weaken our nation.