“It [birthright citizenship] hasn’t affected me because I’m not an American citizen. I do have friends who have parents that are immigrants, but they have birthright citizenship, so there is this fear. If for some reason they are deported if Trump decides to go on with his full deportation, it can severely affect them because she [her friend] will be able to be here, but her parents won’t be able to be here, so she’ll probably move back to where they are from. I think that it just creates this kind of fear that no one should have.”

— Luana Sassaki, 10th grade

“I’m an immigrant myself, so I don’t have birthright citizenship. But for other immigrants who are trying to move to the U.S. and start a life, this complicates things for them, since they can’t have kids here and immediately have citizenship. As an immigrant, I can see the struggle that this would cause.”

— Maria Uribe, 10th grade

“I don’t know anyone who is affected right now, but I do know that some people who are born here, and who are citizens by birthright citizenship. People come here, have kids, and their kids are American citizens and a lot of people do that.”

— Michael Li, 11th grade

“I think that’s really messed up because America is kind of built on immigrants. I think the vast majority of this population, if you go enough generations back, most people, if they’re not Native American, were immigrants. I just think that it’s incredibly showing his privilege and disconnect from the actual roots of our country by stopping it [birthright citizenship] and a vast majority of us do come from it [birthright citizenship].”

— Salem Coyle, 12th grade