When Eve was 10, her family boarded a plane from their home country in West Africa to the United States. She thought they were going on a vacation — her toys and baby pictures were left behind. Little did she know that the U.S. would become her new home. Her parents had secured tourist visas for the family, but when those expired in the mid-2010s, they decided to stay and have been here ever since. 

Eve — a pseudonym that is being used for her safety — is now an undergraduate at a U.S. university who has endured about 10 years of hardship as an undocumented person in the country. 

“I feel like an outsider at my own school because I’m not considered a domestic or international student, and both of [those] have some form of protection,” she said. “This is not my home, per se, but I’m also so far away memory-wise and experience-wise from my home country. I’m basically a no-citizen, no-status person.” 

She said she often fears that information about her status could end up in the wrong hands — a fear that has intensified in recent months as the Trump administration has vowed to carry out mass deportations nationwide. Although Eve has occasionally shared her views on political issues, she does so with extreme caution, particularly around professors and students who might hold conservative views.

“I’ve always spoken about it, but not…where I could be recorded [in case] somebody uses it against me and things like that,” she said. “Blackmail is very real.”   

Eve only discusses her status with people she is close with and deeply trusts. Even then, she worries about others overhearing those conversations. She noted that many of her international student friends with visas are similarly careful and avoid saying anything controversial.

“Their family members tell them, ‘Do not do anything. Do not do anything stupid. Just do whatever you’re doing in your school and just graduate, don’t do anything stupid,’” she said. 

Eve’s undocumented status affects nearly every aspect of her life, not just her ability to express her views or speak openly about her situation. Without a Social Security number or other key documents, she can’t pass background checks, obtain a driver’s license, or apply for most jobs — leaving her with few options to earn income.

Eve’s status has also prevented her from getting “the full college experience.” Specifically, as a premed student, she is constantly looking for ways to build her résumé — volunteering at hospitals, applying for internships, gaining clinical experience. 

Time and again though, her undocumented status stands in the way. Whenever she and her friends search for opportunities, she only has to scroll to the eligibility requirements to be reminded once again that she doesn’t qualify.

While she said she’s been able to shadow doctors in hospitals, she still feels like she’s falling behind in comparison to her peers. 

“[My friends] already have everything down. They already have their application. They have this, they have that. So for me, seeing all my friends basically get ahead of me is kind of sad and can be depressing,” she said.   

She said she has found herself feeling incredibly lonely due to her status. “It just makes me feel so isolated,” she said. “Like there’s nobody else on campus who feels the way I do, you know?”

Additionally, she noted that many of her fellow peers and Americans in general know little about immigration in the United States. 

“Americans don’t really understand the process, and some of them don’t even know what the green card is,” she said. “ Some of them can’t even fathom not being able to drive, not being able to work, not being able to apply for this or apply for that.”

Because Eve is undocumented, she isn’t eligible to apply for FAFSA and is classified as an international student by her university — a designation that comes with higher tuition costs.  Her parents, who are also undocumented, earn $40,000 a year combined, making the cost of her education incredibly burdensome. As a result, she has already taken on significant debt — and expects to take on even more when she eventually attends medical school. 

Although she has thought about leaving the United States in the past, she ultimately decided not to. 

“I don’t really have any family members [in my home country] that I’m close with,” she said. “I don’t really even know the country that I’m from because I’ve been so away from it. And I obviously spent my teen life in the U.S. and half of my adulthood. So the U.S. is all I really know. Moving back, it’s like I have to start from around ground zero.”

Besides, she said, her parents brought their family to the U.S. for a reason. 

“It is harder to climb up the ranks in [my home country] than it is in the U.S,” she said. “The education system here is much better and also very smooth and the job market [in my home country] is very poor. Also, the health care system is better here.”

She added that in her home country, teachers often go on strike for months or even years, which significantly delays students’ education and graduation. As a result, a degree that typically takes four years could end up taking closer to eight.

Despite the challenges, the U.S. also offers a far better path in the medical field — and she still hopes to become a doctor one day.

About a year ago, a small glimmer of hope appeared for Eve and her family when family friends connected them with an immigration lawyer. 

“When we went to go to the lawyer, it was more of just trying to see if they have anything to say really. We were really not trying to get our hopes up.”

Since then, her family, along with their lawyer, has initiated a visa application because the lawyer believes one of her parents may qualify for a T visa — a temporary immigration benefit that allows victims of severe human trafficking to remain in the United States. 

Her parent may qualify for the T visa because they were mistreated by an employer who took advantage of their undocumented status and felt empowered to exploit them. 

T nonimmigrant status is also available to certain eligible family members of the trafficking victims. Eve is eligible to be included, as a family member, in her parent’s visa application. However, her older brother is over the age limit of 21 and therefore doesn’t qualify, meaning he will stay undocumented as he finishes his master’s program and applies to PhD programs in the U.S. 

She says that she and her family are cautiously optimistic about their visa application.

“I’m happy to have something, to have some form of hope, even though it’s scary because I’ve lived undocumented for [a while] and it takes so long [for the application to be processed]. It’s projected to be about a two-year wait.”