Photo by Karin Elton Southwest Minnesota State University student Marlen Cervantes works on homework required for her major.

MARSHALL — National Honor Society, marching band and honor roll in Marshall High School. Dean’s list, academic scholarships and chosen to be an intern for Sen. Al Franken while a student at Southwest Minnesota State University. Those are just some of the activities and accomplishments that Marlen Cervantes has taken part in and achieved. Cervantes, who has lived most of her life so far in Marshall, is one of the many young people in the United States who have big dreams.

Cervantes was born in Mexico, but feels 100 percent American — “I’m American in every single way, but paper,” she said.

She came to the United States when she was a 1-year-old infant.

“My mother was a single parent and we first moved to California,” Cervantes said.

Finding it a hard road in California, the family moved to Marshall to be near an aunt.

“I didn’t know I was undocumented,” Cervantes said. As a youngster, she had dreams of what her life could be, maybe a pilot, but when she was 5, her cousin told her she was “illegal,” Cervantes said. “She said, ‘you can’t be anything you want to be’ because I wasn’t born here.”

Cervantes told her mother what her cousin had said.

“She started crying with me,” Cervantes said. “She didn’t know what to say. Her motto has always been ‘keep working hard and good things will come.’ She instilled in me that (being ‘illegal’) wouldn’t diminish me as a person.”

Cervantes persevered, participating in the National Honor Society, marching band, band, speech and taking Advanced Placement classes. It was hard turning 16 though and being unable to get her driver’s license like her peers.

The summer before her senior year in high school, President Barack Obama did what Congress wouldn’t do — finally do something about the nearly 800,000 immigrants brought to the United States as kids. By executive order, he created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which provided temporary work permits and shielded recipients from deportation.

“It was perfect timing for me — just as I was thinking about college,” Cervantes said.

She quickly got her work permit and applied for her Social Security number and got her driver’s license.

“It was the best feeling in the world to apply for my Social Security number, to step out of the shadows,” she said. “I thought, ‘omigosh, maybe I can go to college.'”

During high school, Cervantes was asked to join the Minnesota Youth Council.

“We attended rallies at the Capitol promoting youth,” she said. “Once a year we would talk to our representative. I was in that for three years. I’ve always seen the world in a broader sense. I’ve always been aware that policy can make an impact on the individual.”

While growing up, Cervantes’ family was never eligible for financial help even though they needed it.

“We had no health insurance, no benefits whatsoever,” she said. “That’s a misconception that we feed off the government when in reality, we’re paying into it.”

Cervantes said her mother worked many jobs to provide for her children.

“We barely saw her,” Cervantes said. “She worked nights, weekends. But we felt loved, like we had a purpose.”

However, she did “worry every day that my mom wasn’t going to be there” when she got home from school because of her immigration status. “You grow up very quickly.” Cervantes, like others in similar situations, had to take care of younger siblings, translate for adults, and then there is the anxiety of driving to the store without a driver’s license and worry that the car will get stopped for a broken taillight or something.

Not qualifying for federal aid like other students, Cervantes took a year off after graduating high school and worked at two full-time jobs. She then attended the University of Sioux Falls in South Dakota, but had to drop out after a semester because of finances. She then transferred to SMSU.

“I’m the second in the family to graduate high school and the first to graduate with honors and the first to attend college,” said Cervantes. Her mother was unable to go to school past the sixth grade but provided a strong base for her children.

Cervantes is now a junior majoring in public relations. A highlight of college was attending a presentation by Hannah Hankins of Lac qui Parle County, who worked in the Obama administration, starting out as an intern.

“She really motivated me,” Cervantes said.

Her speech professor, Rick Herder, saw that she was “awestruck,” Cervantes said, and introduced her to Hankins.

“She was very inspiring,” said Cervantes.

Soon after, Herder and another professor, Ben Walker, simultaneously thought of Cervantes when they saw a link on their computers about an internship for Sen. Al Franken’s office.

“I’m a big fan of Al Franken,” Cervantes said. “I thought, ‘could little ol’ me be an intern?'”

Cervantes sent a cover letter, in which she talked about her DACA status, and application. She soon received an email inviting her to St. Paul for an interview.

“It was the best interview of my life,” she said.

Two days later she was notified that she has gotten the position.

“I gave it my all that summer,” she said. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“She got it for her academic credentials,” said Herder. “She is a talented, articulate and gracious person. She’s an excellent student and a positive, resilient person.”

As an intern, Cervantes handled the mail and answered phone calls from constituents and gave the casework to the right staff member to handle. Another task was working with the state scheduler responding to invitations. Cervantes was honored when she was given the password to Franken’s schedule. The scheduler had worked with four previous interns and Cervantes was the first she had given the password to.

Since the internship was unpaid, Cervantes worked from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Capitol and from 6 p.m. to midnight at Target to pay the rent for her summer sublease and to pay her other bills.

A highlight of the summer was attending an interns luncheon with Franken.

The start of a new school year brought her world crashing down when Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced earlier this month the Trump administration has rescinded the DACA program. President Donald Trump gave Congress six months to come up with a legislative fix before the statuses of the “Dreamers” begin to expire.

“We knew it wasn’t permanent,” Cervantes said of DACA. She knew she had taken a risk, exposing her and her family (but not her younger brother, who was born in the U.S.).

“Tuesday, September 5, was a tough day,” she said. “I did my fair share of crying. There was a mourning process.”

Cervantes said she received commiserating texts and emails from Franken’s staff. Then that Thursday, she was eating breakfast and she got a call from Washington, D.C.

“It was Al,” she said. “He said, ‘I wanted to know how you’re doing.’ My eyes welled up. He gave me reassurance that we had lost a battle, but the war has not ended and we will push forward.”

Cervantes said the phone call with Franken was “the best four minutes of my life.”

The top House and Senate Democrats say they have reached agreement with President Donald Trump to protect thousands of younger immigrants from deportation and fund some border security enhancements. Cervantes is unsure of what will happen. She knows she is not a “crime. I’m a good person. I contribute.”

Cervantes said kicking people out of the country where they have lived most of their lives is “inhumane and unacceptable.”

She said politicians are “playing with the lives of humans. We are pawns in your game of politics. Mass deportation, building a wall is not the answer.”

Cervantes wishes she could vote.

“That is one right or responsibility that I don’t have,” she said. However, “I tend not to focus on what I can’t do, but what I can.”