Protesters rally for immigration outside Governor's mansion
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- A couple dozen people gathered in front of the Governor's mansion in Raleigh on Monday to voice support for President Obama's executive order expanding immigrant protections.
It came on the same day the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case brought by 26 states, challenging the order.
In 2014, President Obama issued the decree targeting undocumented children and their parents with the intent of keeping families together. By the administration's count, it would have affected 4.3 million adults.
A Texas court blocked the expansion, though, and more than half the states (including North Carolina) joined suit challenging the President's authority.
"Giving these people access to drivers licenses and IDs, just being acknowledge by the state would allow these people to contribute to the economy more than they do so already," said William Saenz with the advocacy non-profit El Pueblo.
But many conservatives take issue with the process as well as the procedure.
"It should go through the legislative branch," said the John Locke Foundation's Mitch Kokai. "And not be a case where the president just says, 'Congress, you're not going to deal with this, I'm doing it myself.'"
"Going all the way back to Eisenhower," Saenz countered, "every president has enacted some kind of executive action related to immigration, so in that regard, [these two programs] are no different."
