How an Obama Leader went from undocumented child to helping thousands of immigrants

José Patiño was sitting in his senior-year economics class, preparing to attend Arizona State University (ASU) on an academic scholarship, when he realized everything in his life was about to change.

It was January 2007, and his teacher explained that Arizona voters had just approved Proposition 300, a law barring students without legal permanent status from receiving in-state tuition or state-funded financial aid.

Patiño had received a letter about the change but hadn’t understood it. But his teacher made it clear: he was no longer eligible for his scholarship. A few seats away, a friend held the same letter. 

“I was like, 'Oh, she's talking about us,'” Patiño recalled. “I confirmed the letter with somebody else, because I was like, 'Oh, maybe this is just me.' That's when it became real.”

Patiño was gutted but undeterred. Months later, he secured a private scholarship that allowed him to attend ASU in Tempe. That struggle fueled a promise he made to himself while walking across campus: “I’m going to make this right.”

Today, Patiño has gone from undocumented child to DACA recipient to community organizer to Obama Foundation USA Leader. It has been a path of challenges, setbacks and hardfought victories. But the Obama Foundation USA Leader has worked every day, finding inspiration from President Obama and support in his group of fellow leaders. 

“It seems dire right now, but there is always something to be done. In my core, I do believe most Americans are not OK with what's going on. I think it's incumbent upon us to keep showing a path forward, not through violence, but following the nonviolent principles, and to keep reaching out to people, and let them know that we need their help,” Patiño said. 

Read on to understand his journey, and how he used his experience to make a  lasting impact on 4,400 students a year and 10,000 people navigating challenges like due process, detention and deportation. 

Since fall 2025, Patiño said he has seen families afraid to go to church, send their kids to school and seek hospital care. U.S. citizen children of immigrants now buy groceries and drive parents without legal status to work, he said.

Every day, Patiño said receives calls or texts from students or parents in tears, sharing stories of loved ones picked up by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at restaurants, on the road, and at work.

“I cry at least once a day, not because I'm giving up, but because I feel the weight of what our community is facing and how little power we often have in the face of federal enforcement,” he said.

To confront that feeling of powerlessness, Patiño is helping to lead an organization that trains others on the rights all people have on U.S. soil. Facilitators roleplay what to do if agents show up at participants’ school, jobs or homes. 

Aliento, the non-profit where Patiño is vice president of education and external affairs, also helps families prepare deportation packets, which are legal documents outlining who will care for children under 18 or any assets if parents are detained or deported. “Especially when people have little children, they start crying because they’re visualizing what it would be like for them to be separated…,” Patiño said, trailing off. “Those are really hard sessions. But we have to do it, because the likelihood of this happening is just more and more.”

When Patiño was 11, his father was deported. He came back to Arizona, but instability marked Patiño's childhood. So did the kindness of others: church members who shared meals, the food bank that didn't base assistance on immigration status, neighbors and friends who helped when they could. "I just want to be the adult that I wish I had when I was a kid,” Patiño said, “and the adult that some people showed me to be.”

Despite the instability, Patiño qualified for that full-ride scholarship to state universities. He wanted to go to ASU to honor the sacrifices his parents made to give him this opportunity. Then came November 2006, when Patiño saw the news that Arizona voters approved Proposition 300, but he didn't understand what it meant for him.

His mother broke down in tears when the family received the letter rescinding his scholarship. 

“I told her, 'Don't worry about it. I'll figure it out,'” Patiño said. “But it was devastating, to be honest with you, because I have gotten my hopes up, and I don't like to do that. And worse, I've gotten my mom's hopes up.”

Days later, sitting in that economics class, his teacher's explanation finally made the policy real.

Patiño talked to counselors, who sent him to teachers, who sent him to outside organizations. Eventually, in the summer of 2007, he received a new scholarship created specifically for students like him, to pay out-of-state tuition. But his relief came with guilt. His friends and cousins didn’t get scholarships. 

“It was like, why me?” Patiño said. “And I felt kind of like accessing privilege. And so for the first year, most nights when I would walk to my car from studying at school, I would promise I was going to do my part to amend this. Because it didn't feel right that other people couldn't go.”

After Congress failed to pass the DREAM Act, President Obama established the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy in 2012, providing temporary deportation relief and work permits to eligible, young undocumented immigrants. He said he was skeptical DACA would ever be a reality, sure that anyone who publicly acknowledged being undocumented would be deported. But he was proven wrong.

“There’s a lot of history within this country of people coming together and the sheer faith and will of the country changing policies and politics to give rights to individuals that didn't have them before. And that will happen again.” 

In 2016, a leader in Phoenix named Reyna Montoya founded Aliento, and she recruited Patiño, who’d been community organizing since high school, to volunteer to bring mental health practices to immigrant communities. 

Then the federal administration rescinded DACA in 2017. What he thought would be a short volunteering stint became his life. He and Montoya married, and today, they lead Aliento together. 

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Patiño’s coalition was working to restore in-state tuition to undocumented students. Patiño had built alliances with unexpected allies like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 

Finally, Patiño’s dream was realized. Sixteen years after it was stripped away, Arizonans passed Prop. 308 to offer in-state tuition to students regardless of their immigrant status in 2022.

Since then, Aliento has helped to launch numerous scholarships: 

The Obama Leaders USA program has been crucial in sustaining this work, Patiño said, particularly in connecting him with other advocates across the country. The program also exposed him to bridge-building work across religious backgrounds and other efforts to strengthen democracy.

“There were times where it felt really bleak,” he shared. “But having a group of individuals who are committed and care — at some point in time, I pick some people up, and some people pick me up.

It builds resilience,” he said. “It feels really great to be in a community where individuals care for others, especially those who are marginalized right now, and can offer you support at any moment in time.”

And it matters right now, Patiño said, more than ever.

“I didn't think ICE would enter elementary schools to detain children,” Patiño said. “I didn't imagine agents would arrest migrants as they showed up for their immigration court hearings. I never thought states like Texas or Florida would end in-state tuition for DREAMers. And I couldn't have imagined the level of cruelty now being celebrated—millions cheering online as children suffer or families are torn apart.”

But Patiño perseveres.

“I've seen teachers, counselors, donors step up to support students they've never met,” he said. “That's what gives me hope. The unyielding love of my community and the belief that one day this country will see immigrants, documented or not, as people pursuing the same American dream its founders once sought.”