BELTSVILLE, Md. – A crackdown on illegal immigrants has convinced some attending a Prince George’s County high school to avoid class over deportation fears.

High Point High School principal Sandra Jimenez recently told National Public Radio that roughly 70 percent of students attending the school are Latino, and an increasing number are not showing up out of fear they’ll be deported.

MORE NEWS: From Classroom to Consulate Chef: Culinary Student Lands Dream Job at U.S. Embassy in Paris

The interview comes after the CEO of Prince George’s County Public Schools, Kevin Maxwell, issued an open letter to the federal government condemning “the fear and uncertainty that exists in so many of our school communities as a result of the actions of the Department of Homeland security” – a message that was also sent out in Spanish.

“We started to see it right after the Christmas holiday,” Jimenez told NPR. “And mostly we’re seeing a drop in the students who are the most recent arrivals in the school system, so the students who have gotten here within the last year.”

“So we have about 120 of the newcomer students, so these students are coming at a rate of about 50 percent,” she said.

Jimenez contends the students are skipping class over fears they could be deported, a fear that fueled by their home country’s corrupt systems.

“Those students who have gotten to know the school and … the United States and the United States system, they actually know that there are rules and that the police actually have to follow the rules,” Jimenez said. “People who are the newest arrivals still carry with trauma from their country that there are no rules, that the police have ultimate power and they can do anything they want to do.”

Jimenez told NPR the attendance rate before the Christmas break was about 92 to 93 percent for the “newcomer” students.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

In Maxwell’s Jan. 12 statement, he urged federal authorities to “see schools and other public gathering places as areas where no enforcement activities should take place and ask them to strongly consider the devastating impacts of their actions on the academic, social and emotional well-being of all of our students.

“To our PGCPS students and families,” Maxwell wrote. “We stand with you.”

But when NPR contacted the Department of Homeland Security, officials told the news site they have conducted no raids on public schools, and any allegations otherwise are simply not true.

“Is it that the students just don’t believe it?” the station questioned Jimenez.

“To a certain degree, it’s not the issue of school,” she said. “It’s the issue of the community. They afraid to go out. Some of the newest arrivals are your undocumented minors who may not have people to support them and orient them to get them to come to school. So we’re reaching out to those students.”

Jimenez said last year when the district urged students to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, also known as the FAFSA, only about half of the school’s seniors could participate because the federal government doesn’t offer aid to illegal immigrants.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement increased efforts in January to remove illegal immigrants, particularly criminals and repeat offenders.

“Starting Jan. 2, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents went looking for immigrants who had illegally crossed the border with their families since May 2014 and had been ordered out of the country by a judge,” the Associated Press reports.

“After two days of raids, 121 people from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico were arrested. Arrests were made primarily in Texas, Georgia and North Carolina. To date, 77 people from Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico have been sent home. The remaining 44 people are fighting their deportation orders.”

Meanwhile, problems at the border are getting worse.

“Since the start of the 2016 budget year in October, more than 21,400 people traveling as families have been arrested,” the AP reports. “During the same period in 2015, about 7,400 such immigrants were apprehended.”