(CNN) -- Sitting in the first lady's box listening to the President Barack Obama push for movement on immigration reform, Cristian Avila no longer had to keep his head down and live in fear of being deported. 

While the President dedicated only a brief part of his State of the Union address to immigration, his message went beyond his speech, and the evidence was sitting among the guests invited to join the first lady in the viewing box. 

"I feel honored and excited to be here. If it wasn't for receiving my DACA last summer I wouldn't have been able to attend the State of the Union," Avila told CNN. 

The 23-year-old and his siblings are just one of the many thousands of recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Avila was illegally brought into the United States with his younger brother and sister when he was 9 years old 

DACA is a government program enacted in 2012 that stopped deporting some undocumented young people and instead granted them temporary work authorization and a two-year reprieve from deportation. 

Obama hits the road to push State of the Union message 

The recipients have become one of the most visible groups advocating for immigration reform. 

Avila caught the attention of the Obama administration during his 22-day fast on the National Mall in support of immigration reform last November. And, for the last two years, Avila's been working as a voter engagement coordinator for Mi Familia Vota, a non-profit Latino civic engagement program. 
When?
last November