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Graciela Nuñez Pargas doesn’t know Venezuela. She can’t tell you the geography of its cities or how many presidents the country has seen, but she got a five in AP U.S. history. When her parents fled the Chávez regime to settle in Miami and, eventually, Seattle, they told 7-year-old Graciela that the family was headed to Disney World for vacation. Only after she got off the plane did Graciela learn she was in the U.S. to stay.

Graciela is a Dreamer — someone who came to this country as an undocumented child, but has legal status to live and work here under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. She’s now a 22-year-old University of Washington graduate, working at a humanitarian law firm. Graciela is as American as they come, doing all she can to contribute back to the only country she knows as home.

Her story is compelling but not unique. Across the country, nearly 800,000 young people have benefited from President Barack Obama’s DACA program since 2012. Now, President Donald Trump is terminating that program and throwing Dreamers’ lives into limbo.

As an organizer, I spent the last 16 years working to pass comprehensive immigration reform and protect undocumented people. From the outside, I fought for the DREAM Act in the House and, when it failed under Republican leadership, worked with the Obama administration to push for DACA. I founded the largest immigrant advocacy group in Washington state and helped pass a statewide DREAM Act. I believe so strongly in the fight for immigration reform that I’ve been arrested for peaceful civil disobedience ... twice.

Coming to the U.S. as a young person, settling into adolescence while adjusting to a new country and culture, is a dizzying mix of anxiety and promise. It’s a steep drop-off into unknown territory and a chance to grasp the American dream.

I know because I’ve done it.

I came to the U.S., alone, at the age of 16 to go to college. My parents sent me with the last $5,000 in their bank account because they knew this is where I would have the best education and the brightest future. Since then, I’ve spent 35 years building a life here, the last 18 of which have been as a citizen. I know this country more intimately than I know India, the place I was born. Like Graciela, I consider this my home.

DACA recipients come here at an average age of 6 1/2. Many don’t speak the language of their birth country. The first time they learned to ride a bike, had their first crush, got their first job, faced their first rejection, and celebrated their first big success all happened here. Some only learned they had no legal status when they needed documents to join field trips or apply for college. Imagine feeling as American as anyone but suddenly finding out a simple piece of paper precludes your participation in society.

DACA gave people like Graciela a chance to be fully human again and it allowed America to benefit from their talents. It created space for skilled young people to participate in our economy and recognized that Dreamers are so tightly woven into the fabric of our communities that deporting them would rip our nation apart. Ending DACA would strike a $460.3 billion blow to our GDP over the next decade and the moral cost is immeasurable.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the immediate end of DACA application acceptance and a six-month window to close the program in totality, stripping Dreamers of their future. Sessions claimed this move will “[strengthen] the constitutional order and rule of law” in our country but that is false. Immigrants make us stronger.

Trump’s administration wants us to believe that being American is defined by the walls we build, the place we started, or the whiteness of our skin. Do not believe it.

Being American is about pursuing the promise of a better future, of contribution and generosity, of compassion and commitment.

Dreamers had no choice in Trump’s decision but we in Congress have a choice in our next move. We can stamp on long-held American values and dole out poverty, confusion, and death sentences to hundreds of thousands of young people. Or we can strive for the more perfect union in which our founders believed. We can enact comprehensive immigration reform, protect Dreamers, and provide a roadmap to citizenship for all.

On the Statue of Liberty that welcomed newcomers as they arrived at Ellis Island, it says:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

We know what it means to be American: to come with nothing and become something; to help your neighbors and build a community; to show up, every day, against hardship and persist until your dreams are achieved.

In their stories, determination, and the lives they build, DACA recipients are as American as it gets.

Dreamers have done their part. My Democratic colleagues and I are ready to do ours. All that remains is for President Trump and congressional Republicans to bring forth a bill, so we can finally create a permanent fix for our broken immigration system.

Pramila Jayapal serves as the representative for Washington's 7th congressional district. Follow her on Twitter.

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