The DACA deadline was approaching. He knew there were no easy answers.

Francisco Luna looked around the room filled with mothers, fathers and young people who had just heard that President Donald Trump had decided to end the federal immigration program shielding so-called “dreamers” from deportation.

He didn’t know what the decision would mean for the future of migrants like him, people whose lives had changed because of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

The program, established by former President Barack Obama in 2012, grants qualifying immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children temporary protection from deportation and renewable two-year work permits.

A friend hugged him. He wept, and she hugged him harder, kissing him on the cheek.

Francisco ran his hand over his wavy black hair. His DACA permit would expire in two weeks. The Trump administration announced on Sept. 5 that it would allow current participants to renew, but they needed to submit the paperwork within one month.

That time runs out Thursday, the deadline for anyone eligible to file renewal applications.

Francisco knew he had to act quickly. He needed to see an attorney. He needed to make sense of Trump’s decision on the fate of nearly 800,000 people nationwide who had felt safe under the program. Safe enough to buy houses, start businesses or go to college.

He knew there would be no easy answers.

Should he renew his permit? Would he be safe if he turned over his address and the address of his mother — who has lived for decades in the U.S. without legal authorization — to the administration? What if Congress didn’t act before the deadline to end the program? What would happen to him, to his friends?

Then, there was the immediate dilemma: How would he come up with the $495 he needed to renew his permit? He knew he needed money, and he needed it in a hurry. His permit would expire Sept. 21.

SEE ALSO:What you need to know about DACA and 'dreamers'

What he didn’t know was that, in the days and weeks to come, people would come together to create a safety net for dreamers.

In states from the West to the East Coast, people would donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to help DACA recipients meet the deadline to pay fees for permits that could protect them from deportation for up to two years.

In Arizona, people would donate to online fundraisers. Private donations would pour into a fund for college students with DACA permits. The Phoenix mayor would donate $10,000. California legislators earmarked $20 million to help DACA recipients.

In the hours after Trump’s announcement, teachers, friends, business owners, celebrities, non-profits and complete strangers would launch countless fundraisers for dreamers. No one wanted $495 to stand in the way.

Soon there was a mantra of sorts: No dreamer left behind.

Their future in America

One man was holding what was left of his pink pan dulce (sweet bread) and black coffee when he rushed to his seat after someone shouted, “It’s starting!”

For many gathered in the Phoenix union hall on that hot September morning, it felt like they’d been waiting since the November night last year when Trump was elected president. One young woman called the months of uncertainty over their DACA permits psychological torture.

Voters who backed Trump because he campaigned as an immigration hardliner were waiting for him to keep his promises: End the DACA program, build a wall on the border with Mexico, deport the estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. without legal status.

Francisco woke up early that Tuesday to be at the hall with his friends. The 27-year-old is used to long days.

Depending on the day of the week, Francisco's at barber school, working behind the camera at an internship with a Spanish-language radio show or volunteering with an Arizona migrant-rights group whose members have become his extended family.

Any downtime is spent with his partner and their dog in the Phoenix home they share and checking on his mom, whom he helps support financially.

Francisco closed his eyes at times as he listened to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions deliver Trump’s message on DACA.

“Good morning," Sessions began from Washington, D.C. "I am here today to announce that the program known as DACA that was effectuated under the Obama administration is being rescinded.”

Then Sessions called them “illegal aliens.”

Francisco cringed. Others gasped. The message sank in.

Francisco was standing near his friend Karina Ruiz. The mother of three children is the president of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition.

She was there four years earlier when, in an act of civil disobedience, Francisco was arrested after chaining himself to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility gate in Phoenix. She was there to hug him when he was released from jail.

Francisco glanced at Karina. He was trying to piece together what he’d heard.

He said the attorney general’s language was a wake-up call for what people in the country without legal authorization would face in the weeks, months and years ahead.

“Trump didn’t have the guts to deliver the news himself. He sent Jeff Sessions and, the moment he was speaking, it was a lot of ignorance, a lot of hatred and a lot of messaging for white nationalists to continue to hate our community,” he said. “But my community’s here, my community is gathered to fight, to make sure that we are going to stay together.”

Francisco’s words were fierce, but his voice trembled. He was thinking about people who qualified for DACA and about people like his partner and his mother, who are among the estimated 11 million migrants who don't qualify for DACA.

“There’s a lot of emotions because, like me and many others, there’s folks that have hopes and families to provide for,” he said. “What’s going to happen?”

As he spoke, he looked around the room, watching over his friends. He had dressed to represent his group, wearing a black T-shirt with three words: “Trans Queer Pueblo” in pink, white and blue.

“I’m not worried about the people in this room right now, I’m worried about the people who are home alone right now,” he said. “Maybe they don’t have anyone or know what to do.”

They needed one another

Within an hour of the announcement, Francisco joined the crowd in the Phoenix union hall on a march to ICE. They said they wouldn't leave the country they call home. They held protest signs. One said: "No human is illegal."

Francisco has been paying his own way for years now. He has been able to work since he first qualified for DACA in 2012. He also helps his mother, who raised him and his sisters without help from their father.

Like many DACA recipients, Francisco had postponed renewing his permit until hearing Trump’s decision.

Waiting had cost him. His permit would expire on Sept. 21. That meant that even if he renewed immediately, he still wouldn’t receive his permit in time.

He could spend weeks, maybe months, without protection from deportation.

Under the new guidelines, the federal government would stop accepting new DACA requests after Sept. 5 and only would accept renewal requests received by Oct. 5 for people whose permits expire between Sept. 5 and March, 5, 2018.

On the day of the announcement, Trump used Twitter to call on Congress to “do your job” on DACA.

After years of watching lawmakers fail to pass immigration reform, Francisco doesn’t have faith in Trump or Congress to seal a deal on a pathway to citizenship for dreamers.

His only chance of living and working without fear was to renew his DACA permit before it was too late.

He had to raise $495. But he had rent to pay, car insurance due and too many other bills. He had two sisters who also need to renew their DACA permits.

In the days following the announcement, people started a YouCaring crowdfunding campaign. The initial goal was for $15,000. As of Friday, 181 donors had raised $18,739 for the groups helping DACA recipients.

Puente Arizona, a longtime migrant-rights group that has made news headlines for its acts of civil disobedience, started an online campaign, too. The group, also as of Friday, had surpassed its goal of $10,000, with 129 donors.

Promise Arizona, a non-profit that supports immigrant families, received a $10,000 donation from two Valley Latino leaders, Roberto Reveles and Tommy Espinoza. Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton donated $10,000 to Mi Familia Vota for DACA renewals.

But the need was expansive, and the money went fast. So attorneys in Phoenix started working with the migrant-rights groups to hold DACA-renewal clinics where they offered free legal advice for people who needed help renewing their permit.

Francisco didn’t know it that day he stood in the Phoenix union hall with friends wondering about his next steps and the people who were alone but, soon he’d find help, too.

No way they could raise that much money

About a week after receiving the $10,000 donation, Promise Arizona had already earmarked the scholarship money for 20 students.

The non-profit decided to dip into its reserves to keep paying for renewal fees for anyone who needed the money.

Rep. Tony Navarrete, D-Phoenix, is the deputy director of Promise Arizona. He spoke of one Arizona family with four siblings, all of whom qualified to renew their permit.

“There’s no way they could raise that much money in time,” he said.

Navarrete said the last estimates he received showed there were about 6,000 people in Arizona whose permits qualify for renewal under the new guidelines.

People whose DACA permits expire between Sept. 5 and March 5 are eligible to renew for two years. Nationwide, about 154,000 permits expire during that period, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Families or young people who live paycheck to paycheck can’t come up with $500 on the spot, Navarrete said.

“That’s a bunch of money for working families paying their car payments and insurance ... and their rent at the beginning of the month,” he said. “We don’t want them to feel that burden really impact their lives.”

Navarrete said it's an emotional time. Some DACA recipients are ready to fight. Some are tired. Some are scared.

“They’re a little more anxious to talk on camera,” he said. “Some are starting to go back into the shadows.”

Karina, Francisco's friend and the president of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition, said she hasn’t had much rest since the Sept. 5 announcement.

In 2015, Karina, 33, earned a bachelor’s in biochemistry at ASU while working full-time and raising three children, all born in America. She was 15 when her parents crossed the border illegally to give her a better life in the U.S.

Lately, she spends her days fundraising. As of Sept. 22, her coalition had paid for 10 students to renew their permits.

One story of a young mom sticks with her. The woman’s DACA permit had expired two days before Karina spoke with her.

“She has an autistic son and a girl who has disabilities, so she had to stop working to care of her kids,” she said. “We don’t want her to be in fear of deportation.”

Karina’s DACA permit expires in January. She has put her career on hold to work full-time for the coalition.

She remembers her high school librarian's message for the teenage girl who dreamed of becoming a scientist.

"She said, 'I'll see you when you cure cancer,'" she said.

Karina likes to believe that one day, things will be different, and she'll go back to studying science.

‘I know what it’s like to feel alone’

About two weeks after the DACA announcement, people were still scrambling to raise money.

Members of Aliento and Trans Queer Pueblo co-hosted a fundraiser at Valley Bar in downtown Phoenix. All the donations would go to the groups’ DACA-renewal pots.

They drank and danced to pop, hip-hop and salsa. They tried not to think about the future.

Edder Diaz Martinez sipped on a cold Hamm’s beer and laughed with his friends. The weekend prior to the fundraiser, he’d spent time with students without legal status at an ASU at a retreat in Prescott.

They talked about how they could support one another in the months to come.

Edder is a member of Undocumented Students for Education Equity at ASU. The group recently met with ASU adminstrators.

“We told them they have to do more,” he said. “They have students who are scared, who don’t know what is going to happen to them.”

Edder said ASU is finally listening. Students received an email from ASU officials saying they wanted any DACA student who is eligible to renew their permit to do so immediately. They told students that private donors would pay their fees and an attorney had volunteered to help answer any questions.

FACT CHECK:Did DACA keep some Americans from getting jobs?

Edder renewed his permit over the summer. He remembers when he first realized he had to stop being scared.

He had an outstanding warrant on a traffic ticket that came up when he was stopped for cutting across the light rail tracks. He spent two months in the Eloy Detention Center until his mom could help him pay his $12,500 bond.

“It was really sad all the people in there who are so scared,” he said.

Edder was born in Mexico City and brought to the U.S. when he was five. He considers himself an American. When he was released from the detention center, he knew he had to work harder.

He's studying journalism and mass communication now, and earned a scholarship from United We Dream.

Edder said it’s tough balancing his studies, a full-time job and his advocacy for migrants' rights. He said he keeps going because, “I know what it’s like to feel alone."

‘We need you to spread the word’

On a warm Tuesday night, one week before the Oct. 5 deadline for renewals, Francisco walked into the small downtown Phoenix house that is a headquarters for Trans Queer Pueblo.

He wore the same black T-shirt he wore the day of the announcement.

A young man standing near a wall mural of a monarch butterfly gave an update on the money the group had raised so far to cover DACA renewal fees. He said attorneys are encouraging people to send their renewal paperwork no later than Oct. 2 to ensure it's received by the deadline, just to be safe.

“We need you to spread the word,” he said.

Francisco raised his hand to volunteer with an upcoming fundraiser. After the meeting ended, he spoke with a young woman, a friend he met through the group.

The woman, Reyna Martinez, smiled at Francisco. The preschool teacher received a scholarship to renew her DACA permit.

“I have my son, and I take care of my mom and my little sister,” she said. “There’s no way I could have come up with the money.”

Reyna said she was a little girl when her mother brought her from Mexico to Arizona to escape an abusive relationship.

The day after Session’s announcement, her little boy was listening as she watched the news. He looked at her and asked a question.

“Does that mean they’re going to send you to Mexico?” he said.

“I told him, ‘No, we’re going to be OK,’ ” she said.

But Reyna doesn’t really know if they will be OK.

Soon, the meeting ended, and Francisco said goodbye to his friends.

Asking for help

A few days have passed and Francisco — just home from his internship at the radio show — sat at his breakfast table.

His partner’s mother is having a garage sale to make a little extra money. Francisco worked on fixing his laptop.

“If I can fix it, I can sell it,” he said.

He’s thinking of everything he can sell if he needs to, if something goes wrong. His DACA permit is expired. He's stopped driving for fear of being pulled over.

After the DACA announcement last month, a friend of Francisco's posted a message on Facebook. She wanted to speak to people who said they wanted to help dreamers.

It’s not enough to post photos and messages on social media saying you stand with dreamers, she wrote.

Then, in all caps, she wrote: “Give money to dacamented folks to renew.”

Her note was shared by friends and strangers. Francisco's friends encouraged him to start his own fundraiser.

At first, he was embarrassed to ask for help. But he knew he didn’t have the money to renew his permit, and he didn’t have the luxury to wait.

“My DACA expires this September 21,” he wrote on Facebook. “Like many, DACA allowed me to do something for myself. I know that DACA is not for everyone, but that's why you see me organizing. I organized for my love ones and my community. Share the link and anything helps.”

Soon he raised $300, and then the money stopped trickling in. So he turned to Puente, the migrant-rights group in Phoenix.

“They gave me the $200,” he said. “I went right away to mail my renewal.”

The money is only part of what Francisco sees in the message behind the massive fundraising efforts launched after the DACA announcement.

“So many people have helped,” he said. “It’s not easy for us right now, so it’s good to see people coming together.”

He thought back to the day of the announcement, when he worried if they could reach all the DACA recipients sitting at home alone with no one to turn to.

Was there someone out there who gave up on renewing their permit because they didn’t have $495?

Francisco’s dog, a golden Husky mix with one brown and one blue eye, jumped up to give him a kiss.

“I think everything will be OK,” he said.

He called to his puppy, named “Nini.” It’s short for, “ni estudia, ni trabaja.” The Spanish saying means that Nini’s spoiled, Francisco said, smiling as he tosses his dog an ice cube to play with.

There’s another saying reminicisent of the nickname “Nini,” one that some dreamers use: “ni de aquí, ni de allá” — not from here and not from there.

Francisco tinkered with the laptop. The one he’ll sell to make a little extra money, just in case.

READ MORE:

Rep. Grijalva arrested protesting at Trump Tower

Trump sounding a lot like 'weak' Flake on DACA

Business leader: Legalize DACA recipients

What happens to 'dreamers' after DACA ends?

DACA recipient: 'Everything is on the line'