He once considered dropping out of school after his father was arrested. This spring, he graduated from college.

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Top Takeaways

• Jair Solis graduated from UC Merced after years of living in isolation from family, fearing deportation and immigration raids.
• Research shows that immigration enforcement can harm students’ mental health, attendance and academic performance — challenges Solis said he experienced firsthand.
• The family’s education continues as his mother plans to return to school.

When immigration agents knocked on the door of his family’s home in 2019, 15-year-old Jair Solis stood between them and his father, refusing to let the agents in without proper permission.

Seven years later, Solis became the first in her family to earn a college degree, graduating from UC Merced two months after her mother became a US permanent resident.

The milestone is one that has long felt out of reach for Solis and his family. His mother gave up her dream of becoming a kindergarten teacher because she had no papers. Although he evaded immigration officials after requesting a warrant to obtain permission, they would later detain his father on his way to work. In college, he took a gap year to work and save money to continue going to school.

The stolen Jair Solis wore to his graduation from UC Merced. Source: The Solis family

“Knowing that I’m the only one who got an education and had that opportunity — to have a platform to grow as an academic, as a professional, is really a blessing for me,” said Solis, 22. “I don’t take it for granted, but it’s just that — I never thought I’d be in this position.”

Solis is far from the only student navigating these experiences. A recent analysis from the Brookings Institute estimated that more than 100,000 children – most of them American citizens – were separated from their parents during the latest attacks by the Trump administration, although researchers believe that the number may be higher.

Many studies have found that children whose parents are imprisoned or deported report higher levels of anxiety and depression. Also, a 2025 report from the Children’s Equity Project at Arizona State University also found that children exposed to immigration detention or deportation are more likely to face chronic absenteeism, poor academic performance and higher risks of dropping out of school – challenges that Solis herself faced during and after her father’s incarceration.

That experience is now shaping Solis’ future. During her last semester as a political science major, she worked with a national immigration policy organization in Washington, DC She plans to attend law school and is applying for policy and legal jobs.

The immigration system

The immigration system was omnipresent in Solis’ life. For most of his childhood, both of his parents were illegitimate. Then, during his last years in college, he found himself dealing with the return of the same gang that had arrested his father, a sharp increase in immigration raids in Los Angeles, where his family lives, and a number of deaths involving immigrants.

“That I work in an immigration company and learn about immigration [law in a class] right now, that’s all I can think about right now,” Solis said while living in Washington, DC, earlier this year.” From working in class to talking to my parents, this is just on my mind.”

Her fears were heightened because, about two years earlier, she had urged her mother to start preparing the paperwork to apply for permanent residency when she turned 21, the age at which she could apply for legal status.

But when they filed papers after her birthday, they didn’t know that immigrants going to the type of court appointment her mother later would begin facing detention — and, in some cases, immediate deportation — under the Trump administration’s policy.

Solis said she often went down rabbit holes, thinking of the many ways her mother could be arrested and worrying about what would happen to her younger siblings if they lost her.

“It was like if you have an open wound, they pour alcohol,” said Solis.

The wound begins in 2019, when his father is arrested by immigration. This arrest happened two years after his school, Academia Avance Charter School, made headlines across the country when one of his classmates recorded a video of people from other countries arresting his father near the school.

The school community rallied around a classmate when his family successfully fought to prevent his father’s expulsion.

At the same time, Solis joined Wise Up!, a school club organized by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA – the same organization where he later worked in Washington, DC.

Solis said he joined because he felt responsible to understand how to protect his family.

“My parents gave up everything, they left their whole lives in another country to come and start something new here and support themselves,” she said. “I saw it as a responsibility to be educated and know the steps they should take to be safe.”

The legal rights training you learned through Wise Up! It would be critical two years later, when it was Solis and his family that the school community gathered around.

Father’s detention

Solis’ mother says her son’s desire to seek proper clearance from immigration agents that Sunday morning in 2019 may be why they left shortly after. But before school on Tuesday morning, he woke up to a shock: Immigration workers had grabbed his tail and detained his father as he went to work.

As her mother called their teacher and a family member, Solis contacted the school staff member who led the Wise Up! system. He told CHIRLA, who immediately assigned the family an immigration attorney.

“Jair called all the right people,” said Ofelia Garcia, Solis’ mother, that day. “It’s traumatic because you see it in the news, but you don’t think it will happen to you.”

CHIRLA’s lawyers secured her father’s release within a month and continued to support the family until he was approved for permanent US citizenship, but the arrest quickly tore the family apart. Solis said his father lost his job and the family was denied his last paycheck. Their church and school communities stepped in with food, emotional support and financial help, but Solis knew the family was struggling.

Eventually, he talked his mother into leaving school to work and help pay the bills.

“He just looked at me in this way that … I could only see that it was embarrassing and sad because my mother tried to pursue her educational dreams, but she stopped because of her condition,” said Solis.

Solis credits his mother for keeping him in school and never missed a single day while his father was incarcerated. For him, it was the most practical and safest choice.

“They were very safe at school,” Garcia said, explaining that if she was locked up, her children were at least surrounded by adults they trusted. He was also afraid that they would isolate themselves emotionally if they stopped going to classes.

“I told them that the only way they could help me is to study,” she said.

Solis’ last college years

Solis moved on to high school and college, where his focus turned to adjusting to a completely new environment. He was passionate about what he learned in school, but there were times when those experiences of his family came back.

She left Merced for a school year to save money, for example, because the family’s ongoing financial problems meant she couldn’t support him financially. He said he was also racially profiled by the police several times, incidents that strengthened his determination to continue law school.

He also realized that he had gone through college without fully considering his father’s arrest and eventual release. But last year, as immigration raids intensified while her mother’s application for permanent residency was being processed, those memories resurfaced.

“What happened to my father, I’ve been avoiding thinking about it, I feel like I haven’t fully grieved,” said Solis. “At that time, I was just thinking about floating, floating, and I wasn’t really thinking about my mind. [health]. It finally came to me when I was in DC, because I was alone.”

Now, with both her parents in law enforcement and her college degree completed, Solis said she is finally beginning to face the anger, resentment and fear related to her family’s experience with the immigration system. She has just started seeing a therapist and plans to continue.

Seven years later, he’s still looking out for his parents – this time by encouraging his mother to go back to school. Now that he has a valid work permit, he can pursue better job opportunities and continue the three years of community college he put aside.

Solis’ mother recently told her children: “I will go back to school so you can go to my graduation and be proud of me,” she said.