The Students Balancing Degrees and ICE Fears

For the average student, college is stressful enough, having to take several classes, engage in extracurriculars and organizations, and some having part-time jobs to support themselves. But step into the life of a student who comes from an immigrant family, and college becomes just one stressor in their wheelhouse of many, as they navigate the increasing presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in their communities.

These worries come from the growing number of ICE sightings and new ICE facilities popping up across the country and the state. According to Bridge Michigan, the North Lake Correctional Facility in Baldwin, Michigan, which was reopened in 2025 as an ICE facility, has housed “a daily average of 1,391 detainees – the ninth largest population among all ICE facilities nationally, according to federal reports.” There are plans for another detention center in Romulus, Michigan located in a 250,000-square-foot warehouse, the federal government having paid almost $35 million for it to be set in motion. 

With this surge of ICE presence in Michigan, college students have come face-to-face with realities that they wished they never had to, and it has been wreaking havoc on their mental health. 

“Psychological science is clear: detention, deportation, family separation, and the constant threat of such actions create chronic stress that increases anxiety, depression, trauma-related symptoms, and long-term health risks,” American Psychological Association CEO Dr. Arthur Evans, Jr. said. “This climate of fear disrupts schools, healthcare access, workplaces, and community life, weakening the social connections that protect mental health for everyone.”

A survey shows that OU students have experienced a plethora of emotions due to increased ICE presence. This is on top of the regular mental load that college students are faced with.

For Oakland University student Jasmin Carmona-Almanza, a student majoring both in psychology and Spanish language and literature, there’s been a lot of pressure.

“As a daughter of immigrant parents, I know that constant fear has always been there, but it's a bit more intense now, so it's just a little more stressful, frustrating sometimes,” Carmona-Almanza said. “It's very, very stressful, it's very draining emotionally, I would say, because it's people who look like me, who look like my parents, they've been targeted, they’ve been hurt, they’ve been murdered.”

Maria Alvarez, an accounting major, has felt a similar pressure due to the threat of masked agents, also describing it as draining.

“It's really draining, especially because I know there were often sightings throughout my community, and recently, there's been more,” Alvarez said. “It impacts my mom, so it just makes me really upset that they're around because my mom can't go out to do anything.”

Joannie Texta, a computer science major, has already had her godparents taken from her, as well as her uncle. She fears that her parents are next.

“A big worry I have is my father, 'cause he works as a landscaper, so he's working for other people, random people, and I don’t know their intentions,” Texta said, recalling a recent incident where a woman allegedly called ICE on workers to forego paying them (though this has been debunked). “I have a fear that anything can happen while my father’s working, because he works in that type of field.”

In contrast with his peers, journalism major Adrian Jimenez Morales finds that while his encounters with ICE provoke fear, the idea of ICE provokes anger. Having worked at Pontiac High School, Jimenez Morales has been faced with students directly impacted by the doings of ICE.

“Every day there was a student coming into the classroom saying, ‘ICE came to my house’ or ‘they took my mom, they took my parents, my coworkers,’ that kind of thing,” Jimenez Morales said. “Some students couldn't go to school because they had to fill in for family members who were taken, so they had to work or they had to do paperwork, that kind of thing, so hearing that causes a lot of anger in me.”

With such high stakes, college students have had to become more cautious, take on more responsibilities, and follow extra steps to keep themselves and their communities safe. 

“I’ve noticed some type of vigilance, you know, holding myself back a little bit from talking about myself, from expressing my culture, or even just masking my accent a little bit more, just because I don't know what kind of people I might be around,” Ana Samaniego-Ramos, a psychology major, said. “It's definitely something that’s always in the back of my mind, so even when everything is okay, there's always that little worry that doesn't let me be.”

“We used to do road trips and stuff like that, but now it's like, ‘what if we get stopped? What if something happens?’ If I have to go to a place and it's late at night, I have to be extra careful because you don't know what's gonna happen,” said Carmona-Almanza. “If my car is not working right, if things aren't working well, I'm always like I have to make sure my lights are good, everything's good, 'cause if not, one small thing, and you can get pulled over, and you can get racially profiled.”

Being the only one with a driver’s license in her family, and with her mother unwilling to risk getting detained while she takes her driver’s test, Alvarez has had to step up.  

“Whenever I get the chance to, I go and drive my mom everywhere she needs to be, because I'm scared that they’re gonna take her,” said Alvarez.

Now that she’s an adult, Texta feels that she must be more protective, knowing she must take initiative and take on a parental role if anything were to happen to her family. 

“I have to fend for myself and help my siblings so that they're not the ones to have all this responsibility,” Texta explained. “I have a younger cousin and I'm worried because his parents and my older cousin, they're not from here, and anything can happen.”

Jimenez Morales brings all of his paperwork with him: his green card, social security number, passport, birth certificate, Mexican ID — all of it. This extra layer of precaution doesn’t shield him from the responsibility that he feels he has to his community.

“I'll be in class and I'll get a call like, ‘hey, so-and-so got taken,’ and I 'm like, ‘ah, what do I do with this information?’ I’ve got class, I've got a test, I’ve got work, but I also want to help out, so instead of utilizing the weekend to debrief about my own things, I have to go and help out at a mutual aid event, I have to help someone translate their papers or their testimonies to take to court,” said Jimenez Morales. “I would say it just adds things to my plate that I shouldn't be worrying about as a college student, but it is what it is.”

Knowing how students have been juggling school and added stress, let’s take a look at how OU has taken action. Back in February, OU sent out an email titled “Federal Immigration Enforcement Guidance,” which contained a link to the updated Strategic Response Team page in response to rising issues with ICE across the country. But this response did not feel like enough to the immigrant community on campus.

The pie chart shows the responses from a survey where 69% of students responded that OU's response to ICE wasn't as good as they had hoped. These students believe more could be done.

“At the end of the day, what they're saying is call OUPD, call student affairs, but if federal agents do something, you can't stop them, [ICE] don't have the right to do something, but if they do, you have to let them, so it's kind of contradictory,” Carmona-Almanza said. “I do understand, due to federal policies, that it is something hard for the school to navigate, but I feel like there may be slightly better options, just providing more support to students.”

Texta thought the timing of the email was interesting, as the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both white Americans who went up against ICE, had occurred weeks prior.

“I did appreciate the message, but at the same time, things have happened beforehand, and they didn't address that until it impacted white American citizens so that kind of rubbed me the wrong way, but at least they acknowledge it,” said Texta. 

Jimenez Morales recognizes the university has taken a couple steps in supporting students, but feels that support is all empty words when students are being told they must comply with ICE and call a police officer for help.

“Not to shit on OUPD, they do fantastic work, we've seen it with the stabbing, but for some people in the community, and I'm pretty sure our African-American community on campus can speak to that, calling a police officer is oftentimes not the best thing to do here,” said Jimenez Morales. “So if I already have ICE on my ass, I don't need a second officer there, even if he's advocating for me, I might not feel comfortable with that.”

While students feel very little support from the administration on campus, they have found other ways to address their worries.

A survey shows the several ways students have been handling the increased mental load caused by increased ICE presence. While most mention having conversations with others and their community, some are seeking out professional help or out taking action for their community.

For Carmona-Almanza, the best way to address her concerns is to be vulnerable with her community and have conversations, and she acknowledged that it is not a one-size-fits-all kind of deal.

“We have to touch on those topics that we are sometimes nervous to talk about, because we don't know who we are in the room with sometimes, but as somebody who has the privilege of being a citizen, I feel like I have that space to speak up, so I have an ability to say we should talk about these things, we should talk about things that make us uncomfortable, ways that we can support each other,” said Carmona-Almanza. “What looks like support for me might be different from what looks like support to somebody else, who might be on a student visa, who might have had a family member who was detained, who has been deported, and now they have to work to help their family.”

And evidently, having conversations within your community seems to work. Alvarez takes advantage of the services offered at the Center for Multicultural Initiatives (CMI) office on campus.

“I'm part of CMI, so I talk to my retention coordinator or my supervisor once a month, and I feel relieved I can talk to someone at least once a month, because they understand what I'm going through,” said Alvarez.

Samaniego-Ramos also appreciates the CMI office, encouraging others to connect with them.

“I found a lot of support in the CMI office, they really do try to include everyone and protect everyone and really just create a safe space,” said Samaniego-Ramos.

Jimenez Morales believes UWill, a teletherapy service that operates through universities and offers to connect students with licensed therapists based on your preferences, is a good resource too. 

“The good thing about it is that they outsource people from all over the world,” Jimenez Morales said. “If you're looking for someone who understands the situation of an immigrant student, I think they might have some profiles there.”

In addition to these on campus resources, there are also organizations, services and support groups for immigrant students outside of the university too.

La Casa Amiga, located in Pontiac, is a legal clinic that helps families reunite by assisting with paperwork and provides resources like food drives, job assistance, income assistance and more. They offer services in both English and Spanish, but welcome all nationalities and languages.

One Michigan for Immigrant Rights, based in Detroit, is a grassroots organization who advocate and offer training and other services in support of immigrant families and undocumented students.

These students are just as American as the rest of the students on campus, yet because of their background, they have had to shoulder additional responsibilities others do not even have to think about. If you wish to help immigrants and their families, consider volunteering at these organizations.