A handful of organizations will rally Saturday at the Idaho capitol in Boise to show their support for protections for children of undocumented immigrants.
Former President Obama enacted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – or DACA – program in 2012 to give undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as kids a lawful way to work.
Christian Anguiano, an Idaho native, is one of the hundreds of thousands enrolled in DACA. His parents brought him to the U.S. from Mexico when he was five-years-old.
Anguiano hasn’t been back to the country where he was born since leaving about 20 years ago and says he had a mixed identity growing up.
“For 16 years I felt like I was neither from Mexico nor the United States because even though I felt American I still didn’t have all the opportunities my friends who grew up here in the United States had,” he says.
Now, he's 25 and works for Eastern Oregon University as an admissions recruiter, but says his "future is on hold" after President Trump announced he’d roll back these protections next March.
About 3,100 Idahoans enrolled in DACA. Nearly 790,000 people nationwide did the same.
Some Idaho lawmakers said Obama had no constitutional authority to create the program, but that they hope this move will act as a catalyst for comprehensive immigration reform.
The rally at the Idaho statehouse begins Saturday at 10 a.m.
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