BOISE — People walking through downtown Boise, or ordering a burrito at California Mexican Food, may notice a colorful addition to the businesses’ windows: swarms of paper butterflies with facts about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
“The butterfly has been an image of support for immigrants and DACA recipients for years,” said Rosseli Guerrero, the creative mind behind the butterfly project.
Guerrero is a DACA recipient; she came to the U.S. with her parents from Mexico when she was 5.
She has felt a roller coaster of emotions over the last two years, as DACA has faced challenges from the Trump administration and Idaho officials.
“I have experienced all of the emotions from the events we have seen around DACA,” Guerrero said. “We had a promising Supreme Court decision and then Trump essentially rescinded that.”
DACA is a program from an Obama-era executive order that allows young immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as young children to work and go to school in the U.S. About 650,000 people in the United States are part of the program, including roughly 3,000 in Idaho, according to immigration attorneys.
The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute estimates 66,000 people in the U.S. meet the age requirements to apply for DACA, the Associated Press reports. The Trump administration in July announced it would reject new applications for the program and shorten the renewal period.
The move came a month after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 the Trump administration did not take the proper steps to end DACA; the ruling kept the door open for another attempt.
President Donald Trump has argued that previous President Barack Obama made “an end-run around Congress” in issuing the executive order that created the program.
“I do not favor punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents. But we must also recognize that we are nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws,” Trump said in a Sept. 5, 2017 statement.
With her butterfly project, Guerrero said she wants “to show DACA recipients that they are not alone.” The butterflies are part of her Migration Project, which she started with support from community members and the ACLU of Idaho, where she works.
“This is a way to show support, but also a way to spread factual information about DACA,” she said.
After posting on social media, asking for people to contact her who were interested in doing a DACA-supportive project, Guerrero received several butterflies in the mail, more than she could have made herself. Guerrero and four others spread the butterflies throughout downtown and other Boise businesses on Sunday.
Guerrero said it was important to her to have not only words in support of DACA, but fact-based statements on the butterflies.
“People don’t realize what DACA is and don’t realize the benefits and what people are eligible for who have DACA,” She said. “Especially during the pandemic, we see that there are a lot of DACA recipients in our health care force. I wanted to emphasize that and make sure the information provided was something we researched.”
Guerrero hopes people who see the butterflies will spread photos and information on social media. She also hopes to move the butterflies to another Treasure Valley city next.
People interested in participating in future Migration Project events can email Guerrero, rguerrero@acluidaho.org.
