The Best Story I Know

I was sitting in a Wendy’s on a Saturday night bawling my eyes out, breathing hysterically, and stammering sounds out like a very large 17-year-old child.

Wendy’s is a great place for chicken nuggets and Frostys. It’s not really a great place for crying in public.

What was obvious to pretty much everyone in the restaurant was that I was having one of the worst nights of my life.

My best friend, Juan, had finally told me why he’d been so cagey and reluctant about applying to college: “Elf, I’m undocumented. I can’t afford to go to college — and even if I could most schools wouldn’t let me in.”

At the time I didn’t know what undocumented meant or what the ramifications were. What I knew was that Juan was both the smartest and hardest working person I ever met. When our biology teacher went on a six month leave Juan not only taught himself biology, he then taught the class while the substitute teacher babysat us and watched cat videos. My favorite example of Juan being exceptionally brilliant was senior year when we took AP Calculus BC. About 80% of the class had taken AP Calculus AB the year before. To a large extent the second half of AB overlaps with the first half of BC giving those students a significant advantage in learning the college-level material. Juan had not taken AB and came in with no such advantage. When the teacher posted the first quarter GPAs, much of the class was shocked that Juan had the highest GPA. His friends in the class were not the least bit surprised. He’d been tutoring us all quarter. Juan simply learned things faster than us, but still had the humility to help us understand. That humility is why he doesn’t speak unless he knows he’s right. Whenever I had disagreed with Juan — whether on schoolwork or NFL fantasy drafts — Juan always took the time to help me realize I was wrong.

That’s why I was crying in Wendy’s. Here I was telling Juan he could and should have even better opportunities than I did and Juan was slowly explaining to me that would not be the case. He wasn’t crying. He knew he was right. He’d been in the US 16 years and done his K-12 education here. He took solace knowing he’d have a high school degree and assumed he’d figure out the rest. I proceeded to go through all of the stages of grief for Juan’s lost potential and then did the best rendition of a teenager doing a “but it’s not fair!” routine any Wendy’s cashier had ever seen. Ultimately, I accepted that, like always, Juan was right.

Six months later, we graduated from high school. All Juan’s friends that he’d tutored were preparing to go to incredible colleges. Juan was planning on working and going to community college… part-time. I cracked a joke among all of us that the one thing we had in common about our futures was that we all saw ourselves working for Juan. I still had some optimism given how hard working Juan was.

In December of 2006 I learned what “undocumented” meant and in July 2007 I learned what ICE meant. In the middle of the night Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided Juan’s house and dragged him and his family into police cars to be locked up in a jail as they awaited deportation. Sure, Juan’s older brother could make a mean tackle when playing football but Juan’s family wasn’t a bunch of violent criminals — they were all tax-paying and outstanding members of society. Having snuck his phone out, Juan woke me up in the middle of the night, “Elf, I’m being deported and I wanted to call and say goodbye.”

I hung up on him.

I told him it was too early in the morning for pranks.

He called back immediately. Again, I told him he wasn’t going to prank me. I hung up.

The third time he called “... n’t you dare hang up on me! Listen, I’ve been arrested and I’m being deported. I’m calling to say goodbye.” My first instinct was to tell Juan he was wrong. Somehow, this was going to be the first thing he wasn’t right about.

At least this time I wasn’t crying in Wendy’s.

By morning several of our friends were meeting up to try to process this whole thing together. At 18, my friends and I didn’t know how to overturn a deportation. Most of us had only known what undocumented meant for the eight months because Juan taught us. We sat around and came up with a plan. We’d go to the experts.

We went to immigration attorneys. Several of them. All of them said stopping a deportation would be “impossible.”

We went to congresspeople. Several of them. All of them said stopping a deportation would be “impossible.”

At this point it started to be clear that Juan would once again be right.

We had one last idea: what if we just told people how great Juan was? There was this new website called Facebook our high school friends were using to keep in touch after graduation. We used it to tell them what happened. Then we went to the media. We told them about Juan — his qualifications, his potential, and the insanity of having no way to allow someone with so much to offer any path to staying in this country — and to our surprise they were interested. Apparently a bunch of teens using technology to call attention to a social injustice resonated with one local station.

From there, we got covered by the other stations and then the local newspaper. Our Congresspeople called us back to say they might be able to help. CNN picked up our story as we headed to Washington to talk about Juan. There were 10 of us walking around the halls of the Capitol talking to every Congressperson, staffer, and legislative aide that would listen. Eventually we found out that a private bill could pause Juan’s deportation proceedings. Suddenly “impossible” stopped sounding so certain.

Less than a week after Juan was ripped from his home in the middle of the night, Juan and his family were released from the detention center. It took us pulling off the “impossible,” but for the first time Juan was wrong.

I’ll never forget the first thing he said when we talked to him outside of jail:

“What took so long?”

While his question shocked the reporter who was covering our story as ungrateful, none of Juan’s friends were surprised. We all knew that if Juan been trying to pull off the impossible it would have been done faster.

In the immediate aftermath, Juan became a niche celebrity in the immigrant advocacy scene and around Miami. Miami-Dade College — the local community college — found a way to grant him a scholarship. The smartest, most talented person I’d ever met could finally go to college full time.

More importantly his story became the playbook for stopping child deportations. People started to replicate these strategies across the country and preventing a child from being deported stopped being impossible. Juan became one of the earliest poster children for the DREAM Act and his process of gaining temporary legal status formed the basis for DACA five years later. In typical Juan fashion, he casually helped several hundred thousand children just by being himself.

For all the highs, there was still one gut punch: Juan’s parents were deported on his 19th birthday. Juan and his brother were allowed to stay but his parents had to return to a country they fled 17 years earlier. Under his new status, Juan couldn’t leave the country and his parents couldn’t re-enter. Happy Birthday kid. Who knows when you’ll see your parents again?

At 19, with few assets and no parents, Juan and his brother found a place to live and set off trying to do an impression of a ‘normal’ life. Of course Juan aced his freshman year.

With a temporary residency Juan was able to apply to transfer into a four year university. Presenting himself on merit, Juan earned a scholarship to Georgetown. Three years later, he graduated Magna Cum Laude.

Of course a professor recognized how talented he was and recommended Juan for a job. Finally, he was able to live on his own and support his parents.

That happiness and stability was short lived. Eventually, Juan’s temporary status — which he had to renew every two years — lapsed. He confided that he was tired of living two years at a time, never knowing what he could do next. It sucked but what could he do? Of course, Juan had a plan. Another friend who recognized his talent and diligence offered Juan a job in Brazil. While Juan didn’t speak Portuguese, no one was phased by that fact. I remember halfheartedly trying to convince him not to go, trying to convince him that the U.S. was home. It wasn’t clear that if he’d be let back in if he left. He intimated that this country was no longer the place he could reach his full potential. Of course Juan was right.

The first thing he did after leaving here for good in 2012 was hug his parents again.

I remember being upset at Juan for leaving. It felt like after everything, he was letting us down. I don’t think I was the only one. It took a while to realize that we let him down. Eight years had passed with no progress made on a path to citizenship for kids like Juan. I wasn’t upset at Juan but at myself and at my fellow Americans. Not only had we let Juan down, but we were left to suffer the consequences. Juan would be better off elsewhere. America would not be better off without Juan. He’s not the only example of this country losing valuable talent because we haven’t been able to weigh policy against progress, he’s just the one that’s my brother.

Throughout all of my education, I’ve yet to see an example of a nation that closed its doors and turned its back on the most talented people the world has to offer and found themselves better off. It’s not the right formula for growth. I know we’ve hit a point where we associate undocumented people with “animals” or “bad hombres.” I’d argue that couldn’t be farther from the truth. From my experience I associate “undocumented” with Harvard graduates, medical school students, and best friends who became role models. In the absence of compassion for the huddled masses yearning to be free, we should at least find a way to ensure America stays a beacon to the best, smartest, and hardest-working people on earth… especially if they were raised here.

I’d like to think Juan’s story could happen today. I don’t know that in an America where the president aggressively targets a million children’s future by threatening to repeal DACA or the Secretary of Education sanctions reportingundocumented students to ICE that a student like Juan would have the courage to have that conversation in a Wendy’s. I no longer think we’ve made no progress. I think we’re going backwards. We’re self-sabotaging and showing the world we’re not open to people who can contribute. We get politically riled up by targeting children — whether depriving them of education or ripping them from their families. We can be a more just place. We just have to want to.

Less than 12 years ago, I was crying in a Wendy’s devastated by how unjust life could be.

So where am I now? I’m sitting next to Juan. We’re in a Wendy’s. And I’m having one of the best days of my life because for the second time in my life, I’ve been able to say Juan was wrong.

Juan will have all the opportunities he’s worked for. His intellect, talent, and work ethic will be recognized and applauded.

You see, this Wendy’s is in Boston. It’s a couple of subway stops from Harvard, where Juan graduates from business school today.