With President Donald J. Trump vowing to tighten immigration during his time in the White House, leaders at colleges and universities are working around the clock to protect international students and “Dreamers”—undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children—from policies that could affect their safety and ability to pursue higher education.
“The most important think we must do is to communicate regularly with our students, faculty, and staff, reassuring everyone that our community is safe and focused on our important work in teaching and learning, and that we are prepared to protect and help our students from any abrupt, intrusive efforts to accost, arrest, detain or otherwise harass students,” said Patricia McGuire, President of Trinity Washington University.
McGuire—who has been one of the nation’s most vocal college presidents to criticize the Trump administration—said that Trinity, a Predominantly Black and Hispanic Serving Institution, has clear protocols in place to handle federal agents should they show up on campus demanding access. University leadership has also provided Dreamers with legal information and counseling services that are available to them.
“We have assured our students that federal agents cannot just come walking into classrooms or dorm rooms or get lists. They must have judicial warrants and subpoenas with some specificity,” said McGuire, who has led the private Catholic College since 1989. “Most important of all is being present to students who feel worried and fearful, and helping each to develop positive strategies to cope with this ugly moment in American life.”
Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, an organization composed of a group of leaders from institutions across the country committed to increasing public awareness of how immigration policies impact students, said that the potential threat that students face during a Trump presidency is top of mind for many college presidents and chancellors.
“How can we prepare our campus and support potentially impacted populations without creating panic or adding to stress and anxiety?” asked Feldblum during a January 8 webinar dedicated to exploring the impact that the Trump administration will have on undocumented students in higher education, and how American college and university leaders can navigate these potential impacts.
College leaders say that the biggest challenge they face, aside from the threat of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arriving on campus, is reducing the climate of fear and worry, raising morale especially among immigrant students, and helping faculty and staff to stay positive for their students.
“Faculty and staff are on the front lines with students and they often carry the largest burden of listening, comforting, and helping students to cope,” said McGuire. “Silence is yeast for fear to grow, so we need to be constantly communicating, being real but as positive as possible, keeping everyone in the loop as new information emerges,” she added.
During the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration webinar in early January, Cynthia Carvajal, director of Undocumented and Immigrant Student Programs at City University of New York (CUNY), said that the university has been working to ensure that public safety officers and campus police are trained to handle encounters with ICE. For nearly all U.S. institutions, protocols on protecting data, ICE entering campuses, and training for public-facing staff are already in place, Carvajal said.
“These are all protections that are already part and have been part of this process, so they don’t necessarily need to be highlighted as this is how you can protect your immigrant and undocumented students, but this is how you can protect all of the students,” she added. “That can also ease some of the tensions that I think a lot of the states that are not as progressive are navigating.”
For Dreamers, legislative inaction has only amplified anxiety. According to a fact sheet put together by the American Immigration Council in May 2024 titled “The Dream Act: An Overview,” over 20 versions of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act have been introduced since 2001, with none having passed into law.
Various versions of the DREAM Act have contained some key differences, but every single one would have allowed for undocumented people who came to the U.S. as children to obtain legal status. Another legislation that would have protected Dreamers, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), is also leaving international students in limbo.
As of Jan. 17, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a decision allowing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to continue to accept and process DACA renewal requests for employment, but will not process new applicants. On Tuesday, Jan. 28, the Florida legislature considered and passed a new immigration bill titled Tackling and Reforming Unlawful Migration Policy (TRUMP) Act, which would threaten the state’s in-state tuition policy for Dreamers.
“Florida lawmakers should strengthen our state’s future by keeping our current tuition fairness law for Dreamers in place,” said Gaby Pacheco, President and CEO of TheDream.US. “Thanks to this policy, more than 600 of our former Florida-based TheDream.US Scholars are now college graduates, with the vast majority of them putting their degrees to work in the state as doctors, teachers, small business owners and more. Cutting off Dreamers’ opportunities to pursue and afford higher education is not only harmful to their future success, but shortsighted and harmful to Florida’s overall future and potential economic growth.
Because of state legislators voting on bills to threaten the future of Dreamers in the U.S., Dr. Hyein Lee, Chief Operating Officer for TheDream.US said that the organization is dedicated to maintaining its mission that a college education is key to Dreamers and undocumented students.
“We’re shifting our focus on the education and awareness of resources available to them, to our scholars and alumni, both internal and external, that focuses on immigration support,” Lee said. “We’ve always provided wraparound support for our scholars and our alumni, knowing that college success is tied to holistic support and so we’re ramping up a lot of the resources we’ve already been providing.”
Keywords: Dreamers, Undocumented students, Trump threats, College protection plans,, Immigration policy
#Dreamers #ImmigrationReform #Education
