WASHINGTON -- In April 2011, journalist Jose Antonio Vargas gathered three of his best friends in his New York apartment to brainstorm the name for a new group they planned to launch once he "came out" as an undocumented immigrant.

They wanted something that made people think of immigrants and immigration beyond the politics -- something that was important to Jake Brewer, one of the co-founders, who led the discussion that day. They settled on including "American," and were contemplating the word "define." Brewer tried it out.

"My name is Jake Brewer and I define American," Brewer said, in a moment captured for the 2013 film "Documented."

Vargas has always been the face of the organization they called Define American. But behind the scenes, there was always Brewer, a 34-year-old who died on Saturday in Maryland while participating in a bicycle ride to raise money for cancer research. Brewer, Define American's president and co-chair of its board, left behind his wife, Fox News commentator Mary Katharine Ham, along with a daughter, another child on the way, and many other family and friends. He was a senior policy adviser in the Office of the Chief Technology Officer at the White House, where President Barack Obama issued a statement Sunday calling him "one of the best."

Brewer also left a heavy mark on the immigration debate, encouraging his friends and colleagues to look at the big picture, and to strive to reach unlikely allies by sharing stories of immigrants' humanity. He was one of those allies himself: a white man raised in Tennessee who, because he loved someone who was undocumented, wanted to help others as well.

"I think part of his legacy is he was an all-American guy who made sure that we expanded what we think of all-American," said Vargas.