'Dreamers' Live in Fear of Deportation

High-achieving students are among the millions at risk under Trump's plan

- JIM CARLTON

When Oscar Silva graduated from the University of North Texas in May, he proudly walked across the stage to claim his bachelor’s diploma.

Many of his fellow graduates went on to well-paying jobs, but Silva couldn’t launch a career with his accounting and economics degrees because he lacked legal status in the U.S. Instead, the 24-yearold Mexican immigrant enrolled in a master’s degree program, hoping to buy time for Congress to legalize him and thousands of other socalled Dreamers who came to the U.S. as children without authorized status.

Then Donald Trump was elected to a second term as president, vowing to deport millions of immigrants who are living in the U.S. unlawfully. “I had a mental breakdown,” Silva said. “I thought all of my work was for nothing and I immediately started crying.”

Silva is one of more than 400,000 students in American 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, including incoming border czar Tom Homan, have publicly started to narrow the effort’s scope to focus primarily on gang members, fugitives and those with criminal histories. Still, Homan recently has reinforced his intention of mass arrests. “If you’re in the country illegally, you’ve got a problem,” he said in a CNN interview.

Hurried plans

At-risk students are scrambling to learn their rights, making plans to go underground if necessary and—just in case—contacting distant relatives in home countries they barely remember should they end up being sent there.