When Oscar Silva graduated from the University of North Texas in May, he proudly walked across the stage to claim his bachelor’s degree. Many fellow graduates went on to well-paying jobs, but Silva couldn’t launch a career with accounting and economics degrees because he lacked legal status in the U.S. Instead, the 24-year-old Mexican immigrant enrolled in a master’s degree program, hoping to buy time for Congress to legalize him and thousands of other so-called Dreamers who came to the U.S. as children without authorized status. President-elect Trump has vowed to deport millions of immigrants living in the U.S. unlawfully. Silva is one of more than 400,000 students in U.S. colleges without permanent legal status whose futures hang in limbo as they await what Trump has pledged to be the largest deportation program in U.S. history. Transition officials have started to narrow the scope to focus primarily on gang members, fugitives and those with criminal histories, reports the Wall Street Journal.. Still, incoming "border czar" Tom Homan has reinforced his intention of mass arrests. “If you’re in the country illegally, you’ve got a problem,” he told CNN.
At-risk students are scrambling to learn their rights, making plans to go underground if necessary and contacting distant relatives in home countries they barely remember should they end up being sent there.
Even the 100,000 students eligible for temporary protection from deportation under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) fear that the program could be ended by the courts. Silva is among the majority of Dreamer students without that protection. Trump, who tried to end the DACA program during his first term, has expressed a willingness to help this group of immigrants stay. “We have to do something about the Dreamers because these are people that have been brought here at a very young age,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Other immigration hard-liners say they are inclined to let Dreamers stay put. “Trump has said the people he is going to target for deportation are the ones with criminal background and the ones who have committed a crime, and I agree with Trump,” said Texas state Rep. Terri Leo Wilson.