By Zo Terrana
Staff Writer
Masked federal agents roaming the streets, armed around local communities. Searching for people at schools, job sites and houses only to take a person away from their family. Harassing protesters and even fatally shooting two people on public streets.
This could feel dystopian, from another place all together. In fact, it's not. This is in the United States and is part of the current immigration policy at the hands of the Trump administration sweeping the country. A key force of this immigration policy is the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security. ICE has been utilized by the Trump administration to detain and ultimately deport immigrants who are undocumented and even documented in various cases, separating families in the process.
President Donald Trump began his mass deportation initiative last year when he returned to the White House. During his campaign he promised to enact a massive domestic deportation operation. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trump administration has carried out deportation flights, deporting migrants to developing countries they may have no affinity to, increased national immigration raids and expanded powers to federal and state officials to enforce domestic immigration laws.
“I think for sure it's overwhelming for myself who is a U.S. citizen, but it's even more worrying for those who aren't U.S. citizens,” Steven Garcia, a student of the College’s Hispanic community and president of Union Latina said. “They are having to deal with the stress, anxiety and scares that come from the ICE raids. This puts a lot on the mental health and the safety of children, parents and important people who uphold this country.”
Union Latina helps spread unity within the College’s Latine student body. The organization is now working as a support system to members of the College’s community who are affected by the current ICE enforcement. The organization strives to lend a helping hand to those in need of advice during these difficult times.
The College has felt the impact of the president's immigration policy. Faculty members and students alike, specifically of the Hispanic community, expressed fears and concerns over ICE’s recent conduct in the Trenton area near the College.
“Students here and children around the country are scared that they go to school and might not find their mom at home when they come back. It’s all about the fear of losing someone you love to ICE,” Garcia, a junior history and philosophy double major said.
Garcia, a second generation Mexican-American whose grandparents immigrated from Puebla, Mexico has voiced concern over the Trump administration's harsh immigration crackdown within Trenton.
His family, like many other Hispanic families, have been intertwined with immigration enforcement since the early 2000s while going through the U.S. citizenship process. During the late 2010s, Garcia’s grandparents achieved their citizenship. However his family are still nervous about ICE’s recent activity in the state due to the agency’s treatment of Hispanic immigrants.
“I think the advice I would give to someone who is scared is searching for a person who is a rock for you in the way that they are someone who is the most supportive. Knowing that you aren't alone and things will eventually get better,” Garcia said.
The threat of ICE detaining parents has had an influence on college students with siblings, as the students’ academic and personal well-being is at risk.
“It creates incredible levels of stress because if the students are not worried about themselves or their own status, many are worried about other family members, and this impacts their ability to focus on their studies,” said Regina Morin, a former Spanish linguistics faculty member of the World Languages and Cultures department at the College. “Members of the local Latino community have asked me about getting legal guidance for naming guardians for their children should they get stopped by ICE or deported. If some of the children are older, for example college age or even younger, they wind up having to care for younger siblings on their own or with the help of relatives.”
Morin, in her college teaching career, has an extensive history with first generation Latino Spanish-speaking students. Morin said that the Trump administration’s policy on immigration doesn't just center around ICE, rather, “It revolves around a concerted effort to penalize anyone who was not born in the U.S., naturalized citizens as well as legal residents and undocumented immigrants. It also penalizes anyone who cannot access services in English.”
“Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act,” Morin said, “requires all US medical facilities that receive funding from the federal government to provide interpretation services free of charge to all patients who need them. Language could not be used as a proxy for racial discrimination.”
The College’s World Languages and Cultures department received approval for certificate programs in medical Spanish and Spanish for social services, mental health and law enforcement. A sizable amount of students within these programs are Latino heritage speakers of Spanish. Materials used for these programs were drawn from U.S. government websites which were published in multiple languages. Now these materials are non-existent.
“The fight against DEI is also a fight against providing culturally and linguistically appropriate care to non-English speaking people of color,” Morin said. “It also limits our access to the best materials for our students, which are both free and of excellent quality. The attack on DEI and on immigrants, documented and undocumented, will have an effect on our ability to prepare our students to work with non-majority populations in health care, human services, public health and law enforcement.”
This heightened enforcement has garnered widely unpopular support after the fatal shootings of Renee Good, 37, on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti, 37, on Jan. 24 in Minnesota at the hands of ICE agents. According to a YouGov poll, 57% of Americans somewhat or strongly disapprove of the way ICE is handling its job.
The detainings conducted by the agency have prompted a psychological toll on families targeted for detention due to their citizenship status, thus splitting families. “Immigrants facing the threat of detention or deportation can lead to depression and other mental health symptoms. Parents facing family separation are more likely to keep their child out of school, harming children's academic future,” The American Psychology states.
A Sept. 8, 2025 Supreme Court decision allows ICE to use the following criteria when making investigative stops: The type of location at which they were found (such as a car wash or bus stop); the type of job they appeared to work; whether they speak Spanish or English with an accent; their apparent race or ethnicity according to the Brookings Institute.
On July 4, 2025, the president signed H.R.1, better known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” into law. H.R.1, according to the American Immigration Council, provided $170.7 billion in additional funding for immigration and border enforcement activities to the DHS and its various sub-agencies like ICE through spending federal tax dollars. H.R.1 also expands the construction of new detention centers, some even family detention centers with the assistance of $45 billion in funding.
