ICE Out

By Claire Chang, Andrew Duval, Eleanor Gil, Caitlynn Sue and Anna Yue Sep. 24 2025

Everything changed for Nory Ramos on June 30, when she went in with her mother for a routine check-in appointment to adjust their immigration status. Nory was an honor roll high school student in California expecting to enter her senior year. Her dreams were destroyed when the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) suddenly deported the undocumented mother-daughter pair to Guatemala, the birth country they had escaped due to gang violence. All they were left with were the same clothes they had been wearing for the immigration appointment. On Sept. 8, Nory’s mother passed away after her medication for liver cirrhosis and high blood pressure was confiscated by ICE. Now, Nory is alone, with an indefinite hold placed on her education and life.

Since late January, a nationwide crackdown by ICE has uprooted both undocumented and documented immigrants from established, vibrant communities. Driven by the Trump administration’s promises of carrying out the largest mass deportation in the history of the U.S, the government has deported nearly 200,000 people, as cited by a CNN report in August. These numbers are not only made up of undocumented Immigrants but also include legal immigrants or even citizens who have been wrongfully removed from the country.

From elementary schools to churches, Trump has permitted ICE to make arrests in “sensitive areas”. Immigrant parents are growing increasingly afraid of sending their children outside, and the drop in attendance in Santa Clara County schools has accelerated from 5,000 to 10,000 fewer students per month from January to February, per the San Jose Spotlight.

The impact of the aggressive crackdown on immigration extends far beyond the classroom, and even beyond immigrant communities. Preliminary Census Bureau data show that over 1.2 million immigrants, both legal and undocumented, have exited the workforce from January to July alone. The loss of immigrants in industries such as construction, agriculture and manufacturing has a ripple effect across the entire economy, increasing the costs of daily necessities.

Deportation is expensive: it costs around $70,236 to deport a single immigrant. The Penn Wharton Model estimates that a 10-year policy of removing all illegal immigrants would increase the federal deficit by $1 trillion. While the U.S. should not accept every immigrant at the border, ICE’s aggressive immigration raids do more harm than good to the economy. To justify such an economically reckless policy, the Trump administration and MAGA movement have turned to a campaign of hate and misinformation.

Many Americans believe that undocumented immigration is linked to increased crime. However, Stanford research states that immigrants have been 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born citizens for the past 70 years. In fact, The Marshall Project finds that while immigrant populations have grown from 6.2% to 15.6% in the past 40 years, violent crime rates have fallen by over 50%. Instead of capturing actual criminals that threaten the country, ICE often aims to fill superficial detention quotas—over 70% of those detained by ICE do not have criminal convictions, and this percentage is increasing.

The idea of an invasion of violent illegal immigrants destroying the country’s social and economic structure is absurd and unfounded. What does destroy the country is the deportation of immigrants without due process, the reallocation of funds from important programs toward a campaign of hatred and the crippling of the American economy by deporting contributing members of society. The attack on Constitutional rights threatens the values of liberty and justice that the country was founded on.

On Sept. 8, the Supreme Court removed protections that previously barred ICE from arresting based on race, job, location and language in a 6-3 ruling, contradicting the Fourth Amendment, which is supposed to shield Americans from unlawful seizures. While a Supreme Court justice noted “common sense” with the decision, little common sense comes with giving the government the power to override the Constitution, which requires law enforcement to obtain a warrant before seizing a person. The ruling also perpetuates racial profiling that targets Latinos, who are often seized by ICE simply for appearing Latino or for speaking with an accent. This causes Latinos—even those who have been citizens for life—to face the threat of detainment simply because of racial stereotypes.

In light of the current administration’s inhumane actions against undocumented immigrants, the American people have stood up. The June Los Angeles protests demonstrated the unpopularity of the current deportation policy. Alongside our friends in Los Angeles, we must continue to rise with courage and strength. We must set political differences aside and urge our local politicians and judges to put human rights first, to effectively protest ICE and shut its operations down. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The clear violation of the law, morality, and economic principles by the current administration can expand to other areas if left unchecked. We must take action. We have no other choice.

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About the Contributors

Anna Yue

Editor-in-Chief

Anna Yue, as the Editor-in-Chief of Community News, School News and Investigative Report, enjoys napping, snacking, binge watching and doing anything that allows her to comfortably zone out from the world. If she is not picking up your calls and responding to your texts, she is either doing one of the above or watching her hamster run on its wheel!

Caitlynn Sue

Editor-in-Chief

Caitlynn Sue is a senior at Leland High School and the Opinions and Viewpoint Editor-in-Chief for The Charger Account. Aside from journalism, she loves solving math problems, dancing at 2 am, and playing with her cat.

Claire Chang

Editor-in-Chief

Claire Chang is a senior at Leland High School and the Front Page, Lifestyle and Sports Editor-in-Chief for The Charger Account. When not attempting DIY projects from YouTube, she can be found working out, speaking in Spanish, hiking with friends or vibing to BTS.

Eleanor Gil

Editor-in-Chief

Eleanor Gil is a senior at Leland and the Editor-in-Chief of Feature US, Feature World, and Feature School for The Charger Account. Outside of journalism, she enjoys doing yoga, learning different languages, playing the viola, dabbling in philosophy, and embarking on a billion other side quests.

Andrew Duval

Editor-in-Chief

Andrew Duval is a Senior at Leland High School, and is the Editor-in-Chief for the Entinertainment, Last Word, and Science/Tech pages for The Charger Account. He enjoys exploring the world around him, whether it be through hiking, hitching rides on public transit, or finding concerts to go to.