PEABODY, Mass. — President Donald Trump is likely planning to end President Obama’s ‘DACA’ program, which protected immigrant children from deportation.
For one young man from Peabody, who immigrated here from Brazil, the repeal of the Deferred Action for childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program could rip his family apart.
We first spoke to Doug Santos in the spring of 2016 when he was a senior at Peabody High School.
The football running back had been hiding a secret: he was homeless and living here illegally until his coach took him.
“Sometimes, he'd wear the same clothes to school -- like a couple days in a row,” Santos’ foster father, Mark Bettencourt, told Boston 25 News.
Santos came to the U.S. from Brazil when he was 7, accompanied by his 8-year-old sister.
They traveled without their parents in the back of vehicles with strangers and then walked over the U.S. border.
Santos and his sister Dalilla are known as "dreamers."
They benefit from the Obama Administration program known as DACA, which allows people living here illegally to stay and apply for work authorization without facing deportation as long as they arrived before they were 16.
“It gave me the opportunity to get a job, be able to work, pay taxes and, you know, get a license. And without that program a lot of people -- they really can't do much,” Santos explained.
Thanks in part to our story, Santos was able to get a green card last year.
That made him eligible for federal financial aid and he now plays football at Assumption College in Worcester, where he continues to excel.
But Santos' sister does not have a green card.
Reports of President Trump’s plan to end the DACA program has Santos worried his sister will be deported.
“She's trying to go through college, do something bigger with her life, you know?” Santos said. “Be part of American society. Which is benefiting society … I mean, more people in the working field, people paying taxes.”
His message to President Trump is simple.
“A lot of families will be separated because of this,” he said. “It's going to be cruel … to send all these people back -- and children even -- to send them back to a place that they haven't been to in a while.”
About 800,000 people benefit from the DACA program.
President Trump is expected to make a formal announcement Tuesday.
Sources familiar with the decision told CNN the president won't take any action for at least six months, in order to give congress time to come up with a permanent solution.
MORE: Immigration status could leave Peabody football player without scholarship
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