I wanted to have the family that I never had as
a child. I wanted to provide them with
everything that I didn't get to enjoy as a child.
Coming from Peru, I always knew that money is
important and you only get as far as your efforts.
I do my IT consulting business with a partner,
and I also work full time as a cyber security contractor.
My wife works full time on the daycare, part time
as a real estate agent.
For the snowplowing, we have drivers that work for
us during winter.
My name is Eddie Nuñez.
I'm 34 years old and my wife and I are bringing
$420,000 a year.
Our life was very difficult back in Peru.
My mom really struggled.
She saw the assassination of her parents right in
front of her. She suffered domestic violence.
Crossing the border is not easy, especially for a
14 year old. But I had one goal in mind, so I
just kept pushing and going and I made it here.
Life as an documented person was very difficult.
I resented my life here.
Sometimes I resented my mom.
Living here as an undocumented person just
means working and working and working because you
want to achieve something.
Classes were $1500 to $1700 per class.
I couldn't apply for financial aid.
I couldn't get any federal grants.
So I was paying out of pocket.
They wanted somebody better for their daughter.
And I completely understand that now that
I'm a parent.
My wife and I decided to get married in secret.
So unfortunately, Canada couldn't officially or
lawfully give me asylum.
So they had to send me back to the United States
and I ended up in immigration jail.
I've never been arrested.
I never got in any type of trouble with the law before.
So for me, it was shocking to be detained.
I felt like a criminal, so I was desperate to get out.
I would sign my name and I will go there
every single day to study my case.
And the judge told me, “I'm going to grant you asylum.
You presented a really good case.
You explained everything in detail.
You defended yourself well in front of the prosecutor.”
And she also told me, "Don't ever put
your head down for anybody. Be proud of yourself.”
I felt like I had lost so much time.
And I also knew that studying
medicine was going to be extremely expensive.
So I decided to pursue a degree in cyber security.
As soon as I got my associate degree from
Northern Virginia Community College,
I started looking for jobs.
Any IT job, I started applying for.
Now I work as a cyber security contractor full time.
One of the people that I admire,
I saw one interview with him, Mark Cuban,
and I remember the phrase he used. He said, like, you
only have to be right once. So I had many crazy ideas.
And my wife, who was always pushing me from behind,
she was like, "That's a great idea. Let’s make it happen.”
We bought our first truck in
2011 and we got a contract with the Virginia
Department of Transportation pushing
snow in the winters that we were able to buy
another truck the next year.
And then we bought two trucks and next the
following year we kept buying until we had ten trucks.
We drove a whole week without stopping, not
sleeping. The sand on the sand spreaders will freeze
and one of us will have 1 or 2 of us will have to
climb up and literally shovel it.
And while the other one was driving so we could
start throwing the snow.
With that money, I ended up moving to Lucketts, Virginia,
and I bought a four acre property where I
could park my trucks.
Now she has 12 kids that she takes care of and her
business does very well.
It brings around $168,000 a year.
So with the money that I obtained from selling some
snow trucks and also the money that my wife was
saving from daycare, we were able to save that
money and we started buying properties.
Right now we have eight houses and seven
properties. We fix them up and then we rent them.
Some of the properties that I have are completely
paid off. All the others are currently have a mortgage.
My idea was to get to my goals faster,
was to have different streams of income and revenue.
The first time we went to this coffee shop,
we fell in love with the character of the place.
It looked like That 70’s Show or Friends,
and we were like, "Oh my God, this, this place
looks really nice. And they sell Peruvian coffee.”
And we wanted to add one more, more stream
of income to our current monthly revenue.
So my wife and I decided that this was the perfect
business to buy.
And my goal is to have 20 houses and also to buy two
additional businesses.
My plans for the future is to own more of my time
and delegate more of the work that
I currently have.
I just started crying.
I was extremely happy to finally say, okay, I'm
truly a citizen now.
And I'm happy to be here.
Life is not easy, but it has definitely given me
the good opportunities to be present in my kids
daily lives, and I got to see them grow up.
I'm very grateful with the opportunities.
I'm grateful with God.
I'm grateful for my mom and my wife.
She bet on me.
She put all her chips in my basket and I knew I
couldn't afford to to let her lose.
I'm happy and I'm grateful for this life.