"Front line staff that work directly with students are reporting that students and parents are asking them if the FAFSA is safe given Trump's campaign promises of mass deportation," said Marcos Montes, policy director for Southern California College Attainment Network, a coalition of nonprofits that help students apply for college admission and financial aid.
The National College Attainment Network said those fears are justified. It "cannot assure mixed-status students and families that data submitted to the US Department of Education, as part of the FAFSA process, will continue to be protected," a message on its website read late last month.
That fear is exacerbated by Trump's claims Sunday to NBC News that the only way to deport undocumented parents whose children are citizens is to have the whole family leave. "I don't want to be breaking up families," Trump said. "So the only way you don't break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back."
An estimated 3.3 million Californians live in mixed-status households, including 1 in 5 children under 18, according to data from Equity Research Institute.
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