ALBANY — Guillermo Maciel was 12 years old when his father was deported to Mexico. He never forgot the fear that gripped him the day his father was taken away from him — fear he would never see his father again, and fear his mother would be next. Though Maciel was born in the United States, he shares this fear with thousands of undocumented immigrants, and that fear has now deepened with Tuesday's announcement that President Donald Trump's administration will be rescinding DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program.

Maciel and dozens of other Capital Region residents responded to the announcement by joining together at Wallenburg Park downtown Tuesday evening, holding up posters to drivers-by and singing out chants in support of immigrants both documented and undocumented, and the American Dream. At one point, the demonstrators blocked a ramp to I-787 at Orange Street and North Pearl causing police to redirect traffic.

"Today is us saying, 'Enough is enough, the Trump administration cannot have our DACA youth," said Maciel, a volunteer with Cosecha Upstate New York, a volunteer-based organization that fights for the protection of and respect for immigrants. "Our hope is to alert the Capital Region and let them know that this attack on DACA youth is an attack on us all."

President Donald Trump's decision to bring the curtain down on the hopes of 800,000 so-called dreamers - including 42,000 in New York state - ends a federal practice initiated by the Obama administration in 2012 that allowed undocumented immigrants who entered the country as minors to apply for a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation, as well as eligibility for a work permit.

"When DACA is under attack, what do we do? Stand up fight back," protesters shouted as they took the four corners of North Pearl and Orange Streets. A cacophony of horns and thumbs-ups ensued from the cars driving by in support of the advocates.

Hined Rafeh, a first-generation Syrian-Venezuelan and graduate student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, attended the protest, saying it is her duty as an American citizen to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves.

"I know many people who saw DACA as their lifeline," Rafeh said. "Now that's not only being taken away from them, but they're also being exposed in dangerous ways."

A point that was stressed at the protest was not just that immigrants are not criminals, but also that they are essential contributors to American society.

"There's this image that our DACA recipients are children, are young men and women of high school and college age," Maciel said. "But our DACA recipients are also men and women who are engineers, they are involved in major finance, they are job creators. This idea that we feel comfortable as a nation allowing our current administration to rip into and across not just the social but economic fabric of who we are does not make sense."

Greg Reynoso, an immigrant from the Dominican Republican, stressed that the resistance shown downtown Tuesday would not fade away.

"If (Trump) really thinks that he's going to attack working class and poor immigrant people and no one will fight back, he's wrong," Reynoso said. "We are going to do everything to protect them."