'Dreamers' make emergency plans as Trump vows to deport millions

DACA program during his first term, recently expressed a willingness to help this group of immigrants stay. "We have to do something about the Dreamers because these are people that have been brought here at a very young age," the president-elect said on NBC's "Meet the Press" this month.

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Other immigration hardliners say they also are inclined to let Dreamers stay put. "Trump has said the people he is going to target for deportation are the ones with criminal background and the ones who have committed a crime, and I agree with Trump," said Texas state Rep. Terri Leo Wilson.

Still, she said she doesn't think such immigrants should get extra help. Last month Wilson introduced a bill that would eliminate in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants, a financing mechanism available to them in many other states. "It doesn't make sense that an American out of state has to pay out-of-state tuition but an illegal does not," she said.

Students lacking legal status say they fear that if federal officials become intent on rounding up large numbers of immigrants they will be less concerned with where they come from, said Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan think tank in Arlington, Va., that supports immigration.

"If they think they are easy to get, they'll go get them," Anderson said. "Someone is going to want to go into the president's office and say, 'Look how many people we have gotten out of the country.'"