Society
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StudentNation
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March 23, 2026
With federal cuts and heightened fear on campus, first-generation students at schools like UCLA are asking their institutions to defend and expand their right to education.
Student “ICE Out” protests at UCLA in January 2026.
(Lucy Wong Ryniejski)
Like many young immigrants in the United States, Karla Vásquez Perez had no choice but to follow her family across the border. She was 15 when she immigrated to California from El Salvador with her mother. Now, as a naturalized citizen and a scholar, she’s preparing to graduate with a triple degree and two minors from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Although Vásquez Perez stepped onto campus with no support, she built a network of friends and professors to help her navigate a foreign system. She spent most of her time at UCLA doing what many first-generation students quietly puzzle together: applying for scholarships, writing citizenship appeals, supporting their families and learning—often too late—how to access resources most students inherit through generational guidance. But her success is not the story of most immigrants. Many fall through the cracks without graduating.
Nationally, first-generation students account for just 25.8 percent of the undergraduates in the United States, a majority of which belong to Hispanic, Black, brown, or Indigenous communities. At UCLA, 30 to 40 percent of students are first-generation, or approximately 10,000 undergrads.
Since the Trump administration took office, universities nationwide have seen significant cuts to programs for first-generation immigrants and threats to student safety following the unlawful acts of immigration agents. With federal rollbacks on immigrant protections and program funding, students are calling on their academic institutions to defend and expand their right to an education.
As an emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution, where Hispanic students are projected to make up at least 25 percent of the undergraduate population, UCLA has positioned itself as a national leader in expanding access to higher education.
The university houses programs like the Dream Resource Center, which offers career advancement through fellowships and leadership opportunities, and the UC Legal Resource Center, which provides free legal services for first-generation families. These initiatives were designed to transform access into long-term mobility. However, over the past decade, this infrastructure has frayed considerably thanks to consistent funding cuts.
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According to Ju Hong, project director for the Dream Resource Center, the cuts and the climate are sparking significant fears for students. “The amount of executive actions and policies constantly being announced is causing a lot of chaos and anxiety,” said Hong. “We need even more capacity in terms of resources. But each service organization is already stretched very thin because of what is happening under this administration.”
Shifting political priorities are bleeding many campus-based efforts dry. In 2024, student organizers lobbied for the Opportunity for All Act (AB 2586), legislation that would have allowed California public universities to hire students regardless of their immigration status. Although the bill passed the state legislature, it was vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom that same year.
In 2025, the Trump administration filed lawsuits challenging policies that support undocumented students, like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which shields youth from deportation, and the California Dream Act, allowing them to pay in-state tuition. While a federal court ruling allowed the DACA program to continue in limited capacity, this suit raises concerns about long-term administrative goals to challenge similar programs within California and across the states.
Between 2016 and 2023, enrollment of undocumented students dropped by 51 percent across the UC system.
University officials, like Hong, warn that the decline is expected to continue without durable policy protections and sustained institutional investment. “It’s really a matter of leadership. The chancellors in the UC system, as well as the UC Board of Regents, could make bold statements as a symbolic gesture to support immigrant youth,” said Hong. “Not only should they make this bold statement, but also make concrete policies.”
These students “shouldn’t have to be working overtime to stay enrolled at this university; the support should be in place,” said Tommy Contreras, internal vice president of UCLA’s Undergraduate Student Association Council, which represents more than 33,000 undergraduates. “Unfortunately, our public university system is not meeting that standard of what true public education is about.”
To ensure that first-generation students graduate and succeed post-grad, they need university funded safety nets. Yet much of the existing infrastructure across the UC system relies on unstable state, federal, or private grant funding, rather than permanent investment from institutional revenue.
To make up for these gaps, students are finding creative ways to support their peers.
USAC is proposing the Bruin Promise Slate aimed at creating more DEI capital and programs. The Bruin Promise Slate comprised of two referendums: the Bruin Success, which seeks to generate $5.5 million of additional funding for retention resources, and Bruin Fresh, which will seek to develop a CalFresh or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) alternative for students who do not qualify. This slate would be the first resource program permanently funded by the UC, eliminating reliance on government based grants, by integrating it into student tuition fees, says Contreras who is leading the initiative.
“Given the current political landscape, especially at the federal level, we’ve seen a lot of regression in the types of resources this university provides to marginalized communities, which is extremely concerning,” said Contreras. “So this year, my office and numerous other partners are taking initiative by introducing these two referenda.”
On January 28, Vásquez Perez joined more than 2,500 UCLA students and faculty protesting the Trump administration’s unlawful federal immigration agent raids throughout Los Angeles and cities across the nation.
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Some undergraduates said they hesitate to attend class or leave their homes, including Vásquez Perez, for fear of becoming targets of immigration enforcement. “I always think about how it is that I can feel unsafe at my own school,” Vásquez Perez. “There’s no such policy that protects you from walking, because, apparently, it’s a public space, because we’re a public institution.”
For students already struggling to manage classes and jobs, fears of a federal presence further burdens their educational success. “I have very conflicting feelings about my citizenship. It’s one of the greatest opportunities you can have, but I recognize I will never be fully considered a citizen,” said Vásquez Perez. “My skin color, my accent when I speak. This makes it really difficult, to realize I won’t be perceived as a full human being”
During the demonstration, organizers called on UCLA to declare itself a sanctuary campus, a designation barring university officials from collaborating or cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Achieving such a status would require coordination with state lawmakers—an effort Contreras says organizers are actively pursuing.
While state and federal governments are pulling resources from the undergraduates that need them the most, universities still have the power to protect their students, says Vásquez Perez. “Do we really have to wait until someone risks their life for us to say something? We come to school to educate ourselves. We don’t come to school to get racially profiled.”
Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding approval rating were abundantly clear: untrammeled corruption and personal enrichment to the tune of billions of dollars during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided only by his own derelict sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets.
Now an undeclared, unauthorized, unpopular, and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran has spread like wildfire through the region and into Europe. A new “forever war”—with an ever-increasing likelihood of American troops on the ground—may very well be upon us.
As we’ve seen over and over, this administration uses lies, misdirection, and attempts to flood the zone to justify its abuses of power at home and abroad. Just as Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth offer erratic and contradictory rationales for the attacks on Iran, the administration is also spreading the lie that the upcoming midterm elections are under threat from noncitizens on voter rolls. When these lies go unchecked, they become the basis for further authoritarian encroachment and war.
In these dark times, independent journalism is uniquely able to uncover the falsehoods that threaten our republic—and civilians around the world—and shine a bright light on the truth.
The Nation’s experienced team of writers, editors, and fact-checkers understands the scale of what we’re up against and the urgency with which we have to act. That’s why we’re publishing critical reporting and analysis of the war on Iran, ICE violence at home, new forms of voter suppression emerging in the courts, and much more.
But this journalism is possible only with your support.
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