Thirty-three percent of the greater metropolitan area in Los Angeles is made up of immigrants: 4.4 million out of the city’s 18.5 million residents. Almost half of this population is living undocumented and facing threats of deportation under President Donald Trump’s 10 new immigration actions.

On Trump’s fourth day in office, he ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport more than 1,000 undocumented immigrants across the country. Additionally, the Department of Defense has vowed to deport over 5,000 more people at the San Diego and El Paso borders.

Junior Meredith Ho immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong when she was in seventh grade. This year, she founded Roots and Routes, a club dedicated to documenting the experiences of immigrants and creating conversation around the loneliness immigrants may feel coming to a whole new country.

“We’re basically creating an anthology right now with different immigration stories, especially youth ones, to help new immigrants feel like they’re not alone [and] to have people to relate to, ” Ho said. “So right now, we’re trying to collect stories.”

Club participant and family member of immigrants Maia Kim (’26) said she found the news of President Trump’s plans for mass deportation shocking and unfair.

“We see hard working people that are just being cast out of our country because of their race, because of their background, even though they’re working as hard as anyone else trying to make a living,” Kim said.

Similarly to Kim’s sentiment, club member Julia Ong (’26) said that she feels like majority of immigration policies are centered around discriminating against certain minority groups.

“I think that a lot of the new policies are deeply rooted in racism,” Ong said. “This is such a travesty, and this has pushed back the United States so many years in progress, and this will definitely damage democracy and the way that the public view partisanship and things like that.”

Not all student reactions came with disbelief, however. Ho said that she can understand other opinions on the issue, and how undocumented immigrants may create challenges for immigrants with citizenship.

“If you think about it, immigrants who are here legally should have the priority to be in work forces and all that,” Ho said. “When [undocumented] immigrants start coming into the U.S., the [documented] immigrants, and [undocumented] immigrants are competing for the same opportunities, so I get also where Trump is coming from.”

Senior Phoebe Ramirez said many of the new policies seem to be targeting Hispanic communities the most, with racism and racial profiling being a negative driving force. According to Axios, more than 50% of the Latinos living in the US they surveyed worried about being targeted in mass deportations under Trump’s new plans.

“I think it’s disheartening and honestly, very dehumanizing. I think the way that [the government] is going about it is that people who didn’t come here legally are not human and should not have basic human rights,” Ramirez said. “It’s just really sad the way that it’s being handled — everything that’s happening.”

Immigrants contribute profoundly to America’s society by taking on jobs such as farm and construction workers, jobs that greatly contribute to how America operates she said.

Ho said issues worldwide have brought large groups of displaced immigrants to the United States, and her club is aiming to be a place for those immigrants to come together.

“That’s the thing Roots and Routes is trying to do — is just trying to bring humanity to these populations, Ho said. “[We want to] showcase ways in which we’re more similar than different and overall, just try to integrate peace into our community.”

This story was originally published on The Oracle on February 13, 2025.