Editor’s Note: This article was written for Mosaic, an independent journalism training program for high school students who report and photograph stories under the guidance of professional journalists.

As L.’s classmates walk downtown with friends after school, she takes the bus straight home.

When Josue goes to the supermarket with his sister, they both bring their birth certificates.

While a San Jose student’s friends travel abroad to see relatives, she is bound by national borders, too afraid to travel for fear she won’t be allowed back in the country.

For these students — whose full names Mosaic is withholding for their safety — and other undocumented teenagers or children of undocumented parents, everyday routines are shadowed by fear and uncertainty.

“The school administration had a very general and vague message they shared with the student body about protecting student information, but they didn’t list any specific actions they were taking to ensure students will be protected, which is something I would like to see more of,” said a student from Presentation High School, a Catholic high school in San Jose.

“The only thing separating ‘illegal’ and ‘legal’ immigrants is a piece of paper,” she said.

Now, with the Trump administration’s efforts to ramp up deportations and end the policy that barred immigration authorities from entering “sensitive” locations like schools and churches, that fear is only growing. Schools in the Bay Area are scrambling to reassure students and reinforce protections — but many worry it’s not enough.

While there have been no verified reports of ICE raids in South Bay schools yet, some school administrations are revisiting their immigration enforcement policies in anticipation of potential raids.

In the Fremont Union High School District, which serves parts of San Jose, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Los Altos, Santa Clara, and Saratoga, Associate Superintendent Trudy Gross emphasized that immigration officers cannot pull students out of school directly.

“The only public space in schools is the front office; classrooms are private, and someone could only gain access to classrooms by first checking in at the front office,” she said.

“If someone comes with a subpoena, which is for records, we have five days to process that. If someone comes with a warrant, it would not be inappropriate for us to take 45 minutes to an hour to vet the warrant with our legal team, even if that means the officer needs to wait in the front office,” Gross said.

As schools assert their authority to regulate campus access, legal experts emphasize that federal immigration officers must also adhere to constitutional protections. According to Tanya Broder, a senior counsel at the National Immigration Law Center, there is a strong legal foundation supporting the schools’ policies.

“The policies that require all visitors to check in and be screened before entering any area where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy — in the absence of a valid judicial warrant, judicial subpoena or court order — are consistent with the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures,” she said.

Speaking on the district’s policy of taking time to review warrants or subpoenas, Broder said that “the school’s review of the request is intended to conform with U.S. constitutional requirements, which ICE is obligated to respect.”

Additionally, students and staff have the right to remain silent and request legal representation under the Fifth Amendment if approached by immigration officers.

San Francisco Unified School District follows a similar approach. According to its Immigration Policy & Resources webpage, “Immigration officials shall be redirected to the SFUSD Legal Office,” and “if the officer doesn’t leave, they will be escorted to the front office and an administrator will be notified.”

Even as school districts update their policies, some students want schools to do more to support them. In particular, many expressed frustration over how school officials are communicating their policies.

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“At an assembly that took place recently, a student asked, ‘Will ICE be coming to our school?’ Our principal responded with, ‘I’m not answering that.’” a senior at Willow Glen High School said. “It left me feeling confused and deeply saddened.”

While the student said she worries about ICE pulling her friends out of school and feels that her school is not doing enough to protect students, she also fears the worst for her family.

“What scares me the most is the idea of coming home and not seeing my mother,” she said. “It breaks my heart knowing that my mother lives in constant fear. She has always put others first, and has never once done anything wrong in her life besides crossing that border.”

Ella Polak is a senior at Leland High School in San Jose.