Most of the nation’s college districts are returning to the classroom with immigrant households scared of the Trump administration’s concentrating on of undocumented migrants, based on educators, consultants and oldsters who spoke to ABC Information.
Los Angeles and Chicago’s college districts — the nation’s second- and third-largest public college techniques, respectively — have returned with new steerage and protections for immigrant households cautious of the federal authorities’s measures to curb unlawful immigration.
Chicago Public Colleges (CPS) stated it can prohibit Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brokers or federal legislation enforcement from accessing its services except the brokers produce a felony warrant signed by a federal choose.
Greater than half 1,000,000 Los Angeles Unified college students are again at school with the district’s police pressure partnering with native legislation enforcement in an effort to guard its immigrant college students. LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho burdened the district will present college students with a secure house “no matter immigration standing.”
Dad and mom and college students arrive for the primary day of college as lecturers and volunteers patrol for the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers on the Ninety-Third Avenue Elementary Faculty in Los Angeles, Aug. 14, 2025.
Daniel Cole/Reuters
This comes as immigrants nationwide are afraid of deportation from college campuses because the administration continues to tout its signature marketing campaign promise.
In the course of the first a number of months of the president’s second time period, Esmeralda Alday, former government director of twin language and English as a second language migrant schooling for the San Antonio Impartial Faculty District, stated worry permeated by the immigrant households in her district in contrast to something she had seen earlier than.
Some mixed-status households — the place one or each mother and father are undocumented however the children are U.S. residents — unenrolled from the district after Trump took workplace, based on Alday. She stated it was not solely as a result of perceived threats from ICE however some households additionally obtained detention orders within the mail.
“It’s coming at our households from each angle,” Alday instructed ABC Information. “It’s affecting our households from all angles, virtually leaving them with no alternative however to self deport.”
ImmSchools co-founder Viridiana Carrizales instructed ABC Information that these households now dread dropping their children off in school — some will not even go away their houses — as a result of they threat being detained. She claimed that the administration will not be solely concentrating on undocumented immigrants with felony information however immigrants at massive.
“They don’t need our youngsters,” Carrizales stated. “They do not need immigrant children in faculties, they do not need them to get educated and that’s what’s occurring. We have now mother and father who will not be taking their children to high school, we’ve got mother and father who’re withdrawing their children from applications which are important for his or her kids,” she added.
A UTLA check in help of immigrant college students is seen posted on a bungalow door at Sepulveda Center Faculty in North Hills in the course of the first day of college, August 14, 2025.
Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Day by day Information by way of Getty Photos
Carrizales, whose group companions with college districts to create extra welcoming and secure faculties for Ok-12 immigrant college students, stated, “Not having these children obtain the help that they want goes to finish up hurting us all.”
However as households and faculty officers brace for potential crackdowns this college 12 months, Division of Homeland Safety Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin instructed ABC Information that no arrests have been made on Ok-12 college grounds throughout Trump’s second time period and ICE has but to raid any Ok-12 campuses. Based on McLaughlin, nearly all of DHS’ arrests to date both have prior felony convictions or pending felony expenses in opposition to them.
McLaughlin additionally warned that no Ok-12 college students who’re U.S. residents ought to worry deportation or ICE raids, even when their mother and father are undocumented.
“If you’re right here in the US legally, there isn’t any immigration enforcement, since you’re right here within the nation legally,” she stated.
In Trump’s first full day again in workplace, DHS lifted its longstanding restrictions that saved ICE from conducting raids on faculties and different delicate areas, together with church buildings and hospitals. McLaughlin stated the choice was made to make sure immigration brokers weren’t hamstrung from doing their jobs.
“This really must be an excellent factor for all communities,” she stated. “Why would you desire a felony to take secure harbor in a hospital or home of worship or a faculty? I imply, why would you need somebody to go ‘Oh, they will not get me right here, so I will go and take secure harbor there.'”
DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin speaks throughout a information convention at ICE Headquarters, in Washington, Could 21, 2025.
Jose Luis Magana/AP
Over the last college 12 months and extra lately throughout summer season studying, Carrizales and Alday stated scholar absenteeism spiked in Texas college districts due to worry of federal legislation enforcement. Because the fears proceed, many colleges are involved that projected enrollment for this college 12 months might drop, based on Carrizales.
Attendance has additionally plagued LAUSD, board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin stated. Households at the moment are navigating the digital studying choices the district presents.
Franklin stated undocumented households have heightened anxiousness about visiting faculties throughout back-to-school night time and different parent-teacher obligations.
“They’re fighting the query of do I come to this one occasion that could possibly be useful for my baby or do I be certain that I’m right here for them once they get house on the finish of the day and it’s a no brainer for individuals who are genuinely fearful,” Franklin instructed ABC Information.
“It’s permeating brown communities, specifically, [and] our Black immigrant communities, our Asian immigrant communities, of which there are various in Los Angeles,” she added.
