President Donald Trump has taken aim at students and professors at California’s elite institutions, such as UC Berkeley and UCLA, but community colleges, which enroll the majority of the state’s students, have largely avoided the administration’s ire – until recently.

The U.S. Department of Education announced on March 27 that it was stopping California universities and colleges from using federal funding to “provide services to illegal immigrants.” The education department is specifically referring to federal TRIO programs, which provide various forms of financial aid and counseling to low-income, first-generation students.

California schools don’t track how many of their students lack legal status. Although exact figures are hard to capture, some estimates, such as the number of applications for in-state aid, suggest that there are thousands of students without legal status, most of whom are attending California’s community colleges.

More than 100,000 students in California are enrolled in a TRIO program, said Dalia Hernandez, the president of a professional association that works closely with these programs. Informally, colleges know that some students in these programs lack legal status. Now campus TRIO officials are grappling with the president’s order and wondering if they are going to have to start documenting citizenship.

Although non-citizens aren’t eligible for federal financial aid, in 2022 the education department granted California special permission to enroll them in TRIO programs’ academic services through September 2026.

Now the administration is revoking that permission.

Adam Echelman is a reporter with CalMatters.