Jupiter Peraza, 29, started her job at City Hall just last month.
After years involved in San Francisco policy work — including creating a Transgender History Month and advocating against a suspect city redistricting process — she landed a role as Mayor Daniel Lurie’s community liaison to the Tenderloin neighborhood.
Her future is now in danger. Within weeks, she abruptly lost her permission to work in the United States. Since April 10, she’s been stuck in limbo, waiting.
Peraza, who arrived in Los Angeles with her parents from Mexico when she was eight, is one of some 500,000 participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program who have seen long delays to renew their status.
Many like Peraza are now losing their jobs because their biennial renewals, previously routine, have failed to come through.
“Life feels like it’s come to a standstill … my life and my career feel like it’s just come to a stop,” Peraza said of the past few weeks. “I’ve been frozen in time.”
DACA participants across the country have been affected by the delays, and congressmembers earlier this month sent a letter to federal immigration officials demanding answers and faster processing times.
Peraza, unlike many in her position, has help from high up: The San Francisco Department of Human Resources is helping her write requests to expedite her application, she said, as did Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office.
Her supporters have donated nearly $15,000 to a GoFundMe to support her while she is unable to go to work.
Peraza said that the mayor’s office has offered to hold her job for her, but it is unclear how long that offer might stand.
“We can’t discuss the details of personnel matters, but Mayor Lurie and our entire team appreciate Jupiter and are grateful to serve alongside her,” said Lurie’s spokesperson, Charles Lutvak.
“Our administration has always led with San Francisco values front and center, and Jupiter certainly exemplifies that.”
With her DACA status lapsed, Peraza’s presence in the country where she was raised is considered unlawful.
Since her parents brought her to the United States 21 years ago, Peraza has put in the work to get where she is today.
She arrived in San Francisco from Los Angeles in 2015 to attend San Francisco State University, worked as an events manager at Manny’s cafe in the Mission District and then became the director of social justice and empowerment initiatives at the Transgender District. She joined Lurie’s office in March.
The DACA program allows people who were brought to the country as children to live and work in the United States on a two-year cycle of renewals to maintain their eligibility. Records from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services show there are about 9,500 DACA recipients in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The program, launched in 2012 by President Barack Obama, has been under attack from President Donald Trump’s administration, which first attempted to end it in 2017. Between then and 2025, the number of active participants has decreased from 700,000 to 500,000.
Trump has given mixed signals on DACA’s future. In 2024, the president said he wanted to find a way for DACA recipients to stay in the country. But in 2025, the Department of Homeland Security told DACA recipients to self-deport and participants in the program lost access to the federal healthcare marketplace.
Just last week, a Board of Immigration Appeals decision weakened deportation protections for DACA participants. The reason behind the renewal delays is unclear, and the USCIS website still urges DACA recipients to apply for renewals up to 150 days before their documents expire. Peraza said she applied 147 days early.
Despite the risks, Peraza decided years ago that she didn’t want to be ashamed of her immigration status. Her social media profiles proudly announce that she is undocumented.
“I’m just hoping that talking about this can also help others, not just DACA recipients,” she said, “have the confidence to be bold and to be courageous and to demand more — because that’s honestly just an ask of wanting a better life.”
Unfortunately if you’re DACA you’re screwed. No party wants to deal with the hot potato, and S.F. dies not have the power.
How does one even get to work for the government when one is undocumented?
As a (legal) immigrant, I know full well how stressful it is when one’s life is dependent on a system and timing that you can’t control. In this day of deportations I would not be so bold and blatantly critical of the government if I wanted to stay.
Unfortunately, her parents put her in this position and now she’s in limbo, and could be forever. Is this a better life than what could have been? -perhaps yes, you’re still in the USA even if you don’t have ‘everything’ else. I’d still say it’s better than the alternative and if you don’t like it you’re not obligated to remain. Acceptance of this is the situation so you can make a decision is what’s needed, it may sucks but it might be better than not being here at all. Life is not fair or unfair, it just is.
I wish this person the best. But all the “career” talk seems like a distraction from the real issue. Must one suck up to oligarchs in order to remain in the USA? Working for Malibu Dan or at Walmart or selling junk on the street, what does it matter?
The thing I don’t get here is, if one thinks that the US has actually devolved into fascism or authoritarianism, then why would one advertise one’s weakness and vulnerability before the bullies by proudly declaring that one is an undocumented immigrant?
Trans are doing the same thing, telegraphing weakness and vulnerability before the bully and then painting themselves as further victimized when the bullies take that red meat.
The Democrats giving more face time to immigrants than to economically stressed voting citizens contributed mightily to Trump’s victories. Dems virtue signaling by advancing the most controversial and broadly appalling elements of the trans agenda likewise contributed to Trump’s restoration.
That elements of the Democrat patronage operation are fostering these postures implies that the Democrats are sabotaging their own base by coaxing them into strategically untenable positions.
First, do no harm, especially when you are weak relative to the inflexible authority you’re trying to undermine. Read Gramsci on the War of Position.
Gross misuse of Gramsci’s war of position, which would have supported bringing immigrant and trans right struggles to the forefront to transform the dominant ideologies — in addition to all the basic needs working people need like an economy that benefits working people. And THAT is because it’s the necessary prerequisite wherever ideology is determined by the governing aka class, aka the billionaires in our country.
To put it simply, we need to get all of our people on board as a united front. We must confidently popularize the society we want in order to win the power to build it.