From police officer to store employee: The life change of a ‘Dreamer’ who turned in his badge

Édgar Vázquez Silva’s worst fears came true. His boss at the Stone County sheriff’s office in Mississippi called him and asked him to turn in his badge and uniform. The order was clear: all department officers had to be U.S. citizens or, at minimum, permanent residents.

Born in Mexico and brought to the United States without papers by his mother as a child, Vázquez Silva held neither status. For several years he had relied solely on a work permit obtained under DACA, the immigration program enacted by then-president Barack Obama to shield from deportation those who arrived in the country as minors without authorization.

“I felt awful. I held back the tears, but I went into the department and handed everything over,” Vázquez Silva recalls about the moment he returned his badge and uniforms, which he kept in a purple plastic bag. It was a quick procedure, and he was accompanied by his young son. There were no farewells, hugs or words of encouragement: none of his colleagues were at the station. “You have a dream and they take it away from you,” he laments.

Vázquez Silva is not the only one in this situation. Several officers in California have had to surrender their badges and guns or been placed on unpaid administrative leave because they could not renew their DACA status in time. The process has become increasingly complex and slow; it must be completed every two years and affects about 500,000 beneficiaries.

Those affected worked in the police departments of Los Angeles and Santa Ana. Others, like Vázquez Silva, lost their jobs after supervisors imposed stricter requirements on immigration status.

Amid the campaign against the DACA program under the Trump administration, processing times have increased and, for some, submitting a renewal months in advance was not enough. Average wait times rose from 15 days in 2025 to 70 days this year, an increase of more than 360%, according to data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

The end of a police career

Vázquez Silva had spent months lobbying for a green card that would allow him to keep his job at the Stone County sheriff’s office. He thought going public with his case might help. He gave interviews to several media outlets, met with the governor of Mississippi and with a congressman, and maintained an active presence on social media under the name “Deputy Dreamer.” Nothing worked.

The order to require immigration status for all law enforcement officers came directly from Amy Vanderford, head of the State Department of Public Safety. “The sheriff told me he was very sorry, but there wasn’t much he could do. He told me he needed me to hand over the badge,” he recalls.

That ended a five-year law enforcement career in Mississippi, which he had managed to extend despite losing authority and ending up in a part-time role where he couldn’t even carry a firearm. He now works as an assistant manager in a store. “They paid me well and I have benefits. But it’s very different compared with being a police officer,” he says.

Vázquez Silva was born 36 years ago in the border state of Tamaulipas. He has no memories of Mexico. He was only three when his mother crossed with him into Texas, without documents. His stepfather’s construction work moved the family from state to state until they finally settled in Mississippi. When he was 12, his mother told him something that would change how he saw himself. “Son, you don’t have papers,” she said. He understood the meaning of those words years later, in high school as he began to plan his life. “And now what am I going to do?” he recalls asking his mother.

After finishing school, he worked as a gardener, bricklayer, and gas station attendant. His prospects changed in 2012 with the introduction of DACA, and a chance encounter sealed his future. A police officer he met invited him to ride around the city in a patrol car. When the ride ended, Vázquez Silva had one certainty: “This is what I want to be.”

“We are not criminals”

In 2021 he graduated from the part-time officers’ academy and began patrolling the streets of Columbia. Three years later he was selected to enter the full-time academy. But midway through training he received devastating news: he had been disqualified because he was neither a permanent resident nor a citizen. “You can finish the academy, but we can’t give you the badge,” they told him.

From that moment he was not allowed to carry a firearm and his career was put on hold. For a time he was responsible for guarding a public school in Columbia, although he was forbidden from using the shotgun in his patrol car. “I never felt right because I didn’t have a weapon. They could kill me,” he says.

In 2023 he found a new opportunity at the Stone County sheriff’s office, where he worked part time transporting inmates to their court hearings. He did so without carrying a weapon, despite the risks. Although he renewed his DACA card in 2025, the requirement to have at least a green card prevented him from keeping the position.

Vázquez Silva says he will keep fighting to get his police badge back. He now believes one of his options is to meet President Trump in person. “I would tell him to look at my story, to invite me to the White House and give me a chance to be an American and be a police officer again,” he says. “To prove that we, the Dreamers, are not criminals; we love this country deeply and we want the American dream.”

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