Last month, I asked a fellow student who he was voting for. He shrugged and said, “I don’t know. I really don’t follow politics.” I curiously asked which issues he cared about. His answer: none of them.

I get it. It’s easy to feel like political decisions mainly impact “other people.” But those other people are all around you: in your classes, your clubs, walking past you on the quad. They are students like me, whose close relative could be deported at any moment. And they are your peers — Dreamers and undocumented students who risk deportation themselves. What happens on November 3 could be cause for celebration or despair. So, yes, your vote does matter. It matters a lot. 

Every day I worry about my undocumented relative. She works hard, obeys the law, pays taxes and is raising her U.S.-citizen children to be upright members of society. Her children live in constant fear of one day finding her gone. 

Many Marquette students have already experienced this trauma. One friend remembers laughing with her beloved father one day and then grieving his loss days later when she learned that ICE had picked him up and scheduled his deportation.

I see how our inhumane immigration system takes a devastating toll on mixed-status families nationally, in our city and on campus. Undocumented immigrants and their families have lived with this kind of fear for years, but President Trump has worked tirelessly to deport undocumented immigrants and restrict legal immigration. 

A second term would directly hurt a lot of people right here on campus. They are students from mixed-status families who would have to quit school and raise their younger siblings if Trump deports their parents. Others are DACA recipients or undocumented students who have studied hard for years but may never complete their degrees if the Republican-run senate refuses to give them legal status. 

Wisconsin is currently home to 6,540 DACA-recipients. Many I know attend Marquette and are studying to eventually become doctors, nurses and physicians’ assistants. In fact, 280,000 undocumented immigrant health care workers, including 62,600 DACA-eligible individuals, are presently caring for American patients during the pandemic, according to New American Economy. Imagine deporting those critical workers now.

Immigrants aren’t just helping us get through the pandemic; they’re critical to our economy. They helped us recover from the great recession. And to this day, they play a major role in our state, picking our produce, cooking our food, caring for our health and working countless essential jobs. Over 78% of undocumented immigrants are considered essential.

Despite all of this, the Trump administration has fought hard to separate our families, traumatize our children and deport us en masse. This is why your vote matters — to me and also to so many others right here in our community. Elections can be won by the tiniest of margins. Now is not the time for apathy. Now is the time to draw from Marquette’s Jesuit roots and show the world what it truly means to “be the difference.” We must vote like the lives of millions depend on it. Because they do.

This story was written by Nadxely Sanchez, a Marquette student who volunteered to write this letter. She is not a staff member for the Wire. She can be reached at [email protected].

To submit a letter to the editor, email Executive Opinions Editor Alex Garner at [email protected] and copy Managing Editor of the Marquette Tribune Annie Mattea and Executive Director Natallie St. Onge on those emails. They can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].