And amid all the uncertainty for Americans about what their unconventional new president will do in the White House, there is huge anxiety among those who had no choice in deciding to enter America illegally.
As many as a million of people who do not have official authority to remain in the US were brought to the country as children.
An executive order by President Barack Obama has deferred deportation action against them. On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to create a border force to remove all undocumented migrants.
The President-elect has softened his tone since winning the election, but it is not clear what his policy will be once in the Oval Office.
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Maria Etcheverry was brought to the US from Bolivia as a child and remains undocumented. She says her deportation would tear her family apart.
She told Sky News: "My only purpose here would just go down and that's why we're scared.
"We know how hard we have worked to get here, we know how hard it has been for our families to get us to where we are and it would just be very difficult."
Maria is studying to become an immigration lawyer. At her university alone there are more than a thousand undocumented students; so many, they have established a support centre.
Cities like Los Angeles have vowed to fight to defend immigrant communities from Mr Trump's policies.
Police in so-called "sanctuary cities", like Los Angeles, say they will continue a policy of not co-operating with federal immigration authorities.
Robert Garcia, mayor of Long Beach in Los Angeles county, is himself an immigrant and says the undocumented should not be targeted.
He told Sky News: "What we are looking for is: Is this person a criminal? Has this person committed a crime? Are they causing problems in the community? And that has nothing to do with whether they have documentation.
"It's not our job to be the immigration police."
Trump denounced "sanctuary cities" like LA on the campaign trail.
Since the election, Mr Trump has shifted his position on removing immigrants, focusing on those who have committed crimes only.
It is the same policy followed by the Obama administration.
But Mr Trump risks a backlash from those who voted for him on a promise of deporting all in the country illegally.
Mike Simpfenderfer, secretary of Make California Great Again, says the President-elect is being pragmatic and that immigrants should not be worried.
He said: "Don't steal, don't rob, pay your taxes, contribute to society, because you're asking to be part of society, so act like it."
Maria's mother Monica sums up the feelings of many.
She said: "It's about families. We are in his hands. He has the power to cancel a dream."
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