After his inauguration on Jan. 20, president Donald Trump signed a flurry of executive orders on immigration, border security, and citizenship. Moving to unconstitutionally end birthright citizenship, designating the Mexican cartels as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” and reviving plans to finish the border wall, are all just a few pieces of his border and migration plan. Then, on Jan. 22, he declared a national emergency at the southern border and allowed ICE immigration to perform arrests in schools and hospitals, previous no-go zones. While Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) is considered a “Sensitive Location” under new ICE policy, on-campus arrests are still possible.

 

“There's definitely been more talking, especially [in] the Latino community and stuff here. Like you hear people talking about it, you know, it's a topic on everybody's conversations,” 19-year old Hispanic NMC student Jessica Gomez said.

 

21-year-old Hispanic NMC student Emma Gullian added “I was absolutely terrified coming into school after that happened just because it brought back a lot of memories.”

 

“I grew up with the mentality of ‘for the kids, take care of the kids,’ for the betterment of the community … That was also brought to me by my culture, but also it was a very U.S. thing to learn that like, we have all these laws protecting kids. We have all these standards for how we want education, and then for some reason suddenly, where they came from, means they don't get that safety net anymore,” Gullian said.

 

Gomez’s dad migrated to the United States (U.S.) from Mexico in the early 1990s, with her mom following in the early 2000s. After working in Florida for a while, her dad got a temporary job in Northern Michigan. After seeing the beauty of the area, he ended up scoring a year-round job at the Kolarik Farm in Suttons Bay picking apples and cherries six months of the year. This gave her parents the opportunity to settle down in Suttons Bay.

 

“I just think it really shows, like, my parents' efforts to be in this country and work and afford things for my brother and I,” said Gomez, “When you think of migrate, like that's like working the full year.”

 

During his campaign, Trump made the promise to execute the largest mass deportation of immigrants in history. However, multiple challenges have emerged, including countries refusing deportees. “I wanna say it's not possible for him to accomplish what he's saying he's gonna do, but, you know, there's always the possibility,” Gomez explained.

 

“I feel like I'm not even an adult still, and, like, if something were to happen to my parents, I'd have to be left with a teenage boy, and I'm in college, I would have to, you know, quit college and work to, like, raise my brother. Just, crazy concept, but, you know, I'd do it because it's my only option,” Gomez added, “We've already prepared paperwork in case anything happens.”

 

Gullian explained how schools are “supposed to call CPS because, you know, a child cannot be detained without their parents, a guardian, or someone else that's in it for the kids who's going to defend the kids. And now they're telling teachers to forget every training, every instinct in them, telling them that they have to protect the kids.”

 

Gullian grew up a five minute drive away from the Mexican border in Las Milpas, Texas. “It was known as, which honestly just sounds really horrible … the ghetto of the ghetto,” said Gullian.

 

However, the closest border was not the safest. “It was controlled by the cartels. So it was dangerous to use it during the day, but especially after sundown, because they would switch out the US Border Patrol agents with some cartel members, so you would have your vehicle stolen, [and] some women would get kidnapped and held for ransom,” Gullian said.

 

Regardless, she still visited her family across the border by driving farther away to cross. “I loved visiting Mexico. It was very much a part of my childhood and seeing my grandparents and great aunts and uncles,” Gullian said.

 

To justify his executive orders and mass deportation plan, Trump has used rhetoric characterizing immigrants as violent criminals. He has repeatedly accused them of “poisoning the blood” of America, a phrase that echoes the language of Adolf Hitler and other white supremecists.

 

“There is gonna be, like, bad immigrants and stuff, but to group everyone into that based on that is totally crazy. Like, you could say that about anybody,” said Gomez.

 

“I think it's a really cruel way to generalize people because of circumstances. And if we want to look at it that way, then we can look at it as the Border Patrol agents, the ICE agents, the police in the neighborhoods that let themselves get bribed into letting a lot of these things get away,” added Gullian.