On a recent Saturday morning at Willow Cove Elementary School in the East Bay city of Pittsburg, two sisters, originally from Honduras, were waiting their turn to sit down with a lawyer at a free immigration clinic.

The women, Reina and María, said they had come for advice about María’s asylum claim after learning that the lawyer they’d hired was disbarred. Although Reina is a U.S. citizen, KQED is not using the women’s last names because of María’s uncertain immigration status.

They were among hundreds of anxious families who had turned out for the event, organized by the Pittsburg Unified School District and Stand Together Contra Costa, an immigrant legal services network.

In recent weeks, schools and colleges have become some of the places where fear is hitting immigrants the hardest amid President Donald Trump’s ongoing pledge of mass deportations. That’s especially true since the administration last month reversed a Department of Homeland Security policy dating back to 2011 that kept immigration agents away from schools, churches and other so-called “protected” areas.

Reina, 50, said she’s hearing from her teenage daughter that a lot of high school students aren’t showing up for school.

“They’re staying home because they’re afraid they could be arrested,” she said, “Or their parents could be taken away while they’re in class.”

María said when she walks her 8-year-old son to school, she meets other immigrant mothers looking anxiously at passing cars, some too scared to approach the campus. For her part, María said she sometimes couldn’t eat or sleep out of fear of being sent back to Honduras, adding that she was forced to abandon her coffee farm and flee the country four years ago after receiving death threats.

Now, she sees the climate of fear affecting her son.

“He can tell things are changing, and he asks if we’re going to get deported,” she said.

Safeguarding schools

California already limits the use of state and local resources in immigration enforcement. However, some state legislators want to go a step further to protect students in classrooms.

Almost immediately after assuming power, the Trump administration began launching high-profile immigration enforcement operations in a handful of cities across the country — although there have so far been no known reports of such actions at any school sites. While officials have said they’re targeting dangerous criminals, agents have also arrested people with no criminal history.

When asked last month on CBS News whether she thought immigrants with criminal records were likely to be found in churches, hospitals and schools, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem responded: “I’m saying those are not going to be safe zones.”

In that context, California lawmakers have recently introduced three new bills in the state Legislature that aim to keep immigration agents away from schools.

One, AB 49, introduced by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D–Torrance), would prohibit school or child care center employees from letting ICE officers enter their sites without a valid ID, statement of purpose, court order and approval from the school district’s superintendent or child care center director.

Another, SB 48, introduced by state Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez (D–Los Angeles), would prohibit local police from assisting ICE agents in the 1-mile radius around a school and bar immigration authorities from entering schools or obtaining information about students, their families and school employees without a judicial warrant.

A third bill, SB 98, introduced by state Sen. Sasha Renee Pérez (D–Alhambra) would require schools and colleges to create an alert system and notify students, parents, faculty and staff whenever immigration officers come onto the campus.

Muratsuchi said his goal is to ensure that children — and their parents — feel safe going to school.

“Regardless of how you feel about efforts to establish a safe and secure border or in pursuing undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes, that’s not what we’re talking about here,” he said. “We’re talking about kids.”

California’s ‘sanctuary state’ protections

The new proposed measures would build on existing safeguards for California’s large immigrant population.

Under the 2017 California Values Act (SB 54), passed at the start of Trump’s first term, schools and universities, as well as police, courts, county hospitals and other public institutions, are discouraged from voluntarily working with immigration agents. In adopting the law, California became the first in the nation to enact a statewide ‘sanctuary law,’ aimed at promoting trust and cooperation between local authorities and the communities they serve, regardless of immigration status.

California Secretary of State Rob Bonta recently issued guidance for schools and other institutions on how to put the law into practice. He acknowledged that the federal government has the right to enforce immigration laws, including arresting — and potentially deporting — people living in California. However, he noted that federal courts have upheld the state’s right not to use its resources to assist.

And he added, “Every child has the right to a free public education, regardless of their immigration status. Every child and family also has the right to keep their education records and personal information confidential.”

In Pittsburg, schools Superintendent Janet Schulze said her district has already implemented the SB 54 policies Bonta outlined.

“We already had a process in place for the unlikely event if immigration comes to any of our schools,” she said. “So we reviewed that, made sure it was in alignment with the attorney general, and then had our board recommit.”

Now, she said, her district is training the front office staff at every school so they know how to keep student records confidential and refer all law enforcement officials to her office to verify any warrants or requests for access.

And hosting the Saturday immigration clinic was another way to combat the fear that many immigrant families in the district are feeling, Schulze said.

“It’s an important event for all of our community members to understand what’s happening, to know their rights, and to know what services are available,” she said. “That just makes us stronger as a school district.”

‘A lot of worries and uncertainty’

Meanwhile, public universities in California have long offered financial, legal and other support to their undocumented students.

In 2017, the University of California sued the first Trump administration to defend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. DACA, as it’s commonly known, provides temporary protection from deportation and a work permit to hundreds of thousands of otherwise undocumented young people who came to the U.S. as children. Though the courts allowed the program to stand, they barred it from accepting new applicants.

Ju Hong runs the Dream Resource Center at UCLA. He said undocumented students, with and without DACA, are anxious — and hungry for information about fast-changing federal policies.

“There are a lot of worries and uncertainty,” Hong said. “They just want some policy updates. … And definitely legal support.”

So far, however, UC leadership has said little. The UC Office of the President declined KQED’s request for an interview and instead issued a short statement that reads in part: “We are monitoring the [presidential] transition closely and assessing the potential impacts to the UC community. In the meantime, we proudly welcome students from all backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, regardless of immigration status.”

That’s not enough assurance for many students, including a group at UC Berkeley who marched on campus last week demanding more support for immigrant students.

‘Afraid it could be a trap’

While they waited to meet with an immigration lawyer at Pittsburg’s Willow Cove Elementary, Reina and María, the Honduran sisters, sat in on a “Know Your Rights” workshop, led by school board president Heliodoro Moreno, in the library.

Switching seamlessly between English and Spanish, Moreno, who’s also an immigration attorney with the Contra Costa Public Defender’s Office, told attendees that they’re not legally obliged to open the door of their homes to ICE agents unless agents show a warrant signed by a judge.

The information was helpful, María said, but she was sorry more people weren’t taking advantage of the forum.

“I told a lot of my friends they should come today,” she said. “But they said no. They were afraid it could be a trap, and immigration agents could come and take us all away.”