San Diego family celebrates UCSD graduation amid ICE fears

Emily Galicia’s mother stood out among the thousands of friends and family members gathered on a grass lawn at UC San Diego’s 2026 graduation ceremony.

Her red felt hat was easy to spot as she weaved through the crowd, scanning the smiling graduates filing off the stage for her daughter, a bouquet of white roses and a teddy bear clutched in her arm. 

But earlier in her senior year, Galicia had worried her mom wouldn’t be there to celebrate her graduation at all.

In October, her mom hadn’t returned home after a scheduled appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Instead, she had been detained and held in ICE custody, leaving Galicia, 22, and her older sister, 26, on their own for about a month. 

“I never thought it would happen,” Galicia said. 

President Donald Trump’s administration is on a mission to carry out the largest deportation in U.S. history. It has sparked political debates and pointed discussions about public safety and American identity, but the impact on the children of undocumented parents is much less abstract.

Immigration advocates say the administration has targeted immigrant families who have been in the U.S. for decades, some of whom have been checking in regularly with federal officials — despite claims from officials that they are focusing on deporting the “worst of the worst.” 

This week, the Supreme Court delivered one of the most significant blows to the administration’s immigration agenda so far — a decision with profound consequences for immigrant families. The justices ruled 6-3 against allowing the administration to eliminate birthright citizenship for babies born on American soil to some parents without citizenship. 

But other policy changes remain in place that could affect thousands of immigrant parents and their kids locally. According to an estimate from the nonprofit American Immigration Council, about 56,500 children under 18 lived with an undocumented parent in San Diego County in 2023.

While Galicia’s mom was eventually released from detention, the arrest altered her youngest daughter’s last year in college: Galicia moved her classes online to be able to take her mom to immigration and medical appointments, she spent less time with friends in her senior year of college, and she lived the constant anxiety that immigration agents were watching her family. 

“If it was a choice between graduating and helping my mom, I would choose to help my mom,” Galicia said. 

For families and communities across the U.S., graduation season is a time for celebration and optimism for the future. For immigrant families in particular, a child’s graduation can mean the realization of dreams generations in the making, through sacrifices and hard work. 

That was true for Galicia and her family earlier this month on the UCSD campus. 

Her graduation cap was decorated in pink, with lace and cloth roses adorning the top, along with the words, “Lo logré, Mama,” written in pearl beads. 

“I made it, Mom.”

The biggest lesson

Galicia knew the sacrifices her mom, who used to come home from long days of work with swollen feet and tired eyes, made for her and sister.

After the sisters’ dad died from a heart attack, Galicia’s mom considered moving her daughters back to her home country of Mexico, where the rest of her family remained. 

She decided instead that they should grow up and go to school in their own home country, the U.S.

“I always tell them: The three of us are in this together, and together we always pull through,” Galicia’s mom said in Spanish. 

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inewsource is not naming Galicia’s mother because she has a pending immigration case and her family fears retaliation from the government. She has been detained by ICE twice, the first time during the first Trump administration.

The oldest daughter Serenity, then 17, had to figure out how to pay rent, post bail for her mom and take care of her younger sister. When ICE detained her mom again almost 10 years later, Serenity said she felt no more prepared as she was when she was a teenager.

“I think most of those days it was just me sitting on my desk and crying at the same time while doing what I needed to do for work,” she said. 

According to ICE, the agency made about 10,500 arrests in San Diego and Imperial counties in the first 14 months of Trump’s second term. About 1,500 of those arrests happened near schools, hospitals, houses of worship and other places after the administration loosened guidelines around enforcement in such “sensitive locations.”  

Most of those arrested, like Galicia’s mother, have no criminal record, according to an inewsource analysis of ICE arrests in the region from Trump’s inauguration through October 2025.

Galicia graduated June 13 with a degree in economics and a minor in ethnic studies. She said she wants to use her degree to help working-class immigrant families like hers and support her mom. 

Outside of the graduation ceremony, the three posed for photos in front of a green hedge, laughing and crying as they embraced the graduating Galicia in the middle. 

Despite the recent challenges, Galicia holds onto the biggest lesson her mom bestowed: Have hope for the future.

“People can take everything away from you, and you can essentially go down to rock bottom, but there’s always a way to keep going forward,” Galicia said.