This post was updated Jan. 31 at 12:32 a.m.

“The majority of my family has nothing left back in Mexico,” said a UCLA biology student. “If they just started deporting us, we’ll just start from zero again.”

Undocumented students like them have faced growing fears of deportation following President Donald Trump’s inauguration Jan. 20. Trump has promised to target undocumented immigrants in his second term, including through mass deportations across the country, and signed an executive order declaring a border emergency after his inauguration.

The first-year biology student, who was granted anonymity because they feared retaliation, said their family lives around Bakersfield and Sacramento, where immigration enforcement has recently increased the frequency of their patrols. During Trump’s first term, the immigrants in their neighborhood were scared to go to work, they said.

The student said that they have felt stress and unease following the new administration’s promises of mass deportations.

“With the fires here in LA, I didn’t want to call my parents to come pick me up, just because I was scared of them getting deported,” they said.

The biology student also said they and their undocumented friends worry that their years of hard work to achieve higher education could be thrown away.

“That’s a fear of mine – that they can just walk in here and take me away,” they said.

Having grown up in rural Michoacán, Mexico, for 10 years – as opposed to an urban area like the majority of their undocumented student friends – the biology student said they still feel alone even within their circle of immigrant friends at UCLA.

However, Trump’s first term allowed immigration activists to prepare for the protection of undocumented people, said Victor Narro, a member of core faculty for the public interest law program at the UCLA School of Law.

“What’s different now is we’re more proactive, so we already have things in place,” he said. “I think we learned from 2016 how to create the resources, the networks, the policies.”

However, Narro also said that the conservative-majority Supreme Court could preserve executive orders that target undocumented people. Trump signed several immigration-focused executive orders during his first day in office, including one that attempts to end birthright citizenship, which automatically grants citizenship to anyone born within the United States.

A political science student – who is also undocumented and was granted anonymity because of fear of retaliation – said they struggle finding paid internships and work, including job opportunities at UCLA’s Undocumented Student Program, as it does not hire undocumented students without Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status or work-study authorization.

The Undocumented Student Program – hosted within the Bruin Resource Center – offers scholarships, fellowship programs, research grants, free legal services and educational workshops, said Leslie Calderon, the assistant director of the program.

The UC Office of the President said in an emailed statement that the University is evaluating recent executive orders issued by President Trump and the subsequent agency guidance to understand their potential impact on student communities.

The political science student also said they witnessed immigration enforcement officers detain multiple people in their hometown of San Diego, and there had been an increase in border patrol cars the weekend before Trump’s second inauguration. Their family created a plan a few days before Trump’s inauguration of whom to contact in case one of them was detained, they added.

On their Jan. 19 drive back to campus, the political science student said they had to pass a border inspection point and felt anxious, despite the point being inactive at the time.

“During that time, I really can’t even close my eyes, because I feel like I really need to see us going past it,” they said.

The political science student said they will refrain from regularly going back home after Trump’s inauguration to avoid risking their or their family’s safety.

The Fourth Amendment allows undocumented individuals the right to not disclose their immigration status to officers without a warrant or probable cause, said Ahilan Arulanantham, a professor and co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law.

“Your rights empower you,” he added. “It’s not a ‘show me your papers’ country.”

The Fourth Amendment also protects people from unreasonable searches and arrests by the government, sometimes preventing undocumented individuals in educational institutions from being actively targeted by law enforcement, Arulanantham said.

One sanctuary law is California Senate Bill 54, which protects undocumented students by restricting schools in California from coordinating or sharing information of a student’s immigration status with entities such as the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Arulanantham said. The law also prevents discrimination based on immigration status, he added.

Arulanantham also said undocumented students should educate themselves on their rights to data privacy and autonomy through a comprehensive guide provided by the Center for Immigration Law and Policy.

“Students need to know that they have no obligation to answer the questions of immigration enforcement,” Arulanantham said.

The first-year biology student said they hope some leaders can help create an easier path to citizenship, as the immigrants targeted by mass deportation policies are often in the U.S. out of necessity.

“Immigrants are not here because they want to,” they said. “It’s because it’s a need a majority of the time.”