By REANNA CHICO, JRN 111 STUDENT
Editor’s Note: To protect the privacy and safety of the students interviewed, aliases have been used in place of their real names.
Students are anxious. As sightings of ICE near Moraine Valley increase, minority and immigrant students grow more scared by the day.
Cicero, Illinois. A one-year-old girl was pepper sprayed all over her face by an ICE agent during a drive-by incident as the family was pulling out of a Sam’s Club parking lot.
As students spot ICE in the area and view videos on social media of incidents like the one in Cicero, many of them feel the weight of anxiety caving in on their academic lives. With the immigration crackdown closing in, many students are wondering if they can feel safe on Moraine Valley’s campus.
“I get so nervous walking around my community. I shouldn’t feel like this. I am a legally-born American citizen,” says Moraine Valley student Bernardo.
The risk ICE poses to students and their family members is also a cause for distress.
“My father is from Mexico, and honestly, we are afraid for him to go places, like restaurants that are in our neighborhood we know ICE frequents,” says another student, Clarita. “He does have his naturalized citizenship, so he would not be at risk for being deported, but you never know with the way things are happening.”
A third student, Alonzo, expresses anxiety over profiling: “I feel like when they see a Mexican they think ‘ultimate illegal’ and that’s not how they should be operating it and running the ICE program thing.”
“I get so nervous walking around my community. I shouldn’t feel like this. I am a legally-born American citizen.”
Bernardo, Moraine Valley student
Since President Donald Trump launched Operation Midway Blitz in September, Chicago and its surrounding areas have become a hotspot for his immigration crackdown. The operation, conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is about arresting illegal immigrants with criminal records, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
But as ICE has increased its presence, marginalized groups all across the Chicagoland area have become apprehensive and scared for a possible encounter.
With ICE sightings near Stagg High School, Worth and Palos Heights, anxiety has been mounting at Moraine Valley. For some, the feeling began as soon as Trump was sworn into office.
“It’s been like a whole year of ongoing anxiety and concern, since the election results came last year,” Clarita said. “Every month, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, it’s only been six weeks of this… for lack of a better word, bullshit.’”
Even the possibility of spotting ICE in surrounding states causes minority students to worry.
“My anxiety has been super out of control because of that,” Clarita said. “I was actually with my boyfriend and we were in Indiana and I thought ICE was behind me, and it happened to be different, like a construction truck that had lights on it. I panicked and started freaking out.”
Jessica Contreras, director of Moraine’s Counseling and Career Development Center, says the anxiety can have physical and mental effects on students: “Because there are now psychological fears, it’s like that fight, flight, or freeze stays on, so the body stays in this heightened sense of arousal, heightened sense of adrenaline rush.
“Our heart is pumping blood, so that’s where the anxiety becomes excessive and it becomes a concern, because now a person may not be able to shut off their mind.”
Being a marginalized person is not easy in today’s world. When ethnicity and race determine one’s safety, constant worry of ICE interference and brutality looms.
“Students who may be immigrants, or may be undocumented, or have family members that are undocumented, are constantly in fear of something happening. There’s this heightened sense of danger; we have the body stuck in this survival mindset,” Contreras said.
Camila Ortiz, who works for a family-owned farmer’s market, has firsthand experience. “Today we had to make an announcement that ICE was near my store. My heart broke,” she said. “I cried in the bathroom because the look on these people’s faces. They know they don’t have to be illegal to be attacked. They know we’re being profiled every time we step out of our homes.”
“My ultimate worst fear is that these people that don’t have advocates, that don’t have people who can go and fight for them, are just going to get lost in the system and something horrible is going to happen to them.”
Clarita, student
With this possibility of being detained and deported, the physical effects of anxiety is causing many students to struggle to focus on schoolwork.
Contreras says, “If you think about paying attention in class, it makes it very hard to pay attention, because your mind is distracted by what’s going on in your body. You’re not able to relax well enough to even retain that information because your mind was so focused on itself, or so focused on its body with the anxiety.”
When the body is experiencing innate anxiety, it goes through a survival instinct process in which fight-or-flight activates adrenaline and shuts down other bodily functions. That mechanism can have significant detrimental effects on students’ academic success.
“The body can’t always stay heightened, and it can’t always stay in this sense of survival. It could be really exhausting all day to try to maintain yourself or try to focus during the day in school,” Contreras said. “And then, when you get ready to do your assignments, you will be so exhausted. You may not even have the energy to get those assignments done.”
Moraine Valley students say they are having a hard time shutting down their anxiety.
“With my skin color the way it is, obviously ICE is going to single me out of the crowd,” Bernardo said.
Alonzo said those thoughts are never far from his mind: “There’s videos all over the internet talking about how ICE is pulling people out of their cars, little children from ages like 9 and so on.”
Clarita worries for the people who have already been taken by ICE. “My ultimate worst fear is that these people that don’t have advocates,” she said. “They don’t have people who can go and fight for them. They’re just going to get lost in the system and something horrible is going to happen to them.”
Some students are worried that ICE could show up on the Moraine Valley campus.
“With Moraine Valley being the second largest community college in the state, I feel like ICE could come and pull up on us and just try to do what they’ve been doing everywhere and just like take people that aren’t supposed to be taken,” Alonzo said.
Moraine Valley police say they must follow the law, so banning ICE from campus is not something that can be done since Moraine is a public institution. However, Police Chief Patrick Treacy emphasizes that ICE is not allowed in classrooms or offices.
“We can restrict where they’re going unless they have a proper judicial form, one signed by a judge,” he said. “So while they would be allowed in the parking lot, or in a hallway for instance, they’re not allowed in an ongoing class or somebody’s private office.”
Treacy said the campus police will follow FERPA, the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act.
“If somebody came here seeking information on a student without a judicial warrant signed by a judge, we would have to deny their request because we have to follow the law,” Treacy said. “The Trust Act basically restricts all local law enforcement, including campus law enforcement, from assisting ICE.”
If there is a situation on campus involving ICE, Treacy says students and faculty should “let the system work, be good witnesses, and record anything that happens involving ICE.
“If there’s any improper action by ICE, we can follow up through the court system to make sure the student’s, the faculty’s, and the staff’s rights are all protected.”
For students dealing with anxiety, Contreras emphasized the importance of seeking help, citing resources on campus. One resource that any Moraine Valley student can use, regardless of their immigration status, is the Counseling Career Development Center.
“It is a great space to meet with a licensed mental health professional,” she said. “The services are completely free, and confidential. We do not ask our students their documentation status. All we ask is if they are, in fact, enrolled students doing courses.”
Another resource students can use is an anonymous mental health screener on the counseling center’s web page.
“It’s not a diagnostic tool, it’s more of a screener for information, but it will tell you if you are at risk for a certain mental health concern, and it will give you some next steps to take,” Contreras said.
Despite their anxiety, students are finding inspiration and hope in the fact that people are there to help, both on campus and in the widespread movements in the Chicago community at large.
“Just social media kind of makes me feel better too, because there’s power in people,” Clarita said. “There’s people that are standing up for what is right in this current day, and I don’t think it’s going to be like this forever.”
Velocity 
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