Trump’s mass deportation campaign is hitting child care workers, who are already facing shortages

WASHINGTON (AP) — Shortly after President Donald Trump took office in January, staff at CentroNía bilingual preschool began rehearsing what to do if Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials came to the door. As ICE became a regular presence in their historically Latino neighborhood this summer, teachers stopped taking children to nearby parks, libraries and playgrounds that were once considered extensions of the classroom.

In October, the school canceled its beloved Hispanic Heritage Month parade, when immigrant parents dress their children in uniforms and soccer jerseys from their home countries. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began suspending the employees, all of whom had legal status, and school officials were concerned about attracting more unwanted attention.

All of this happened before ICE officials arrested a teacher inside a Spanish preschool in Chicago in October. This event has left migrants who work as child care workers, along with the families who depend on them, feeling afraid and vulnerable.

Trump’s push for the largest mass deportation in history has had a major impact on the child welfare industry, which relies heavily on immigrants and is already suffering from labor shortages. Immigrant child care workers and preschool teachers, most of whom work and live in the United States legally, say they are concerned about potential encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Some have left the field, others have been forced out due to changes in immigration policy.

At CentroNía, CEO Myrna Peralta said all employees must have legal status and a work permit. But the presence of ICE and the fear it generates has changed the way school operates.

“That really dominates all of our decision-making,” Peralta said.

Instead of taking children on walks through the neighborhood, staff push children in strollers around the paths. Staff converted one of the classrooms into a mini-library when the school canceled its partnership with a local library.

The child care industry relies on immigrants

Schools and child care centers were previously off-limits to ICE officials, in part to keep children out of harm’s way. But these rules were repealed shortly after Trump’s inauguration. Instead, we urge ICE officials to exercise “common sense.”

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, defended ICE officials’ decision to enter the Chicago preschool. The teacher, who had a work permit and was later released, was a passenger in a car that ICE officials were pursuing, she said. McLaughlin said she got out of the car and ran to the nursery, stressing that the teacher “was arrested in the hallway, not in the school.” The man who was driving the car entered the nursery, where officials arrested him.

About one-fifth of child care workers in America were born outside the United States and one-fifth are Latino. The proportion of immigrants in some places, especially large cities, is much higher: In the District of Columbia, California and New York, about 40% of the child care workforce is foreign-born, according to the UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Child Care Employment.

Immigrants in this area tend to be better educated than those born in the United States. Those from Latin America help meet the growing demand for Spanish-speaking kindergartens, such as Centronia, where some parents enroll their children to give them a head start on learning another language.

The American Immigration Council estimated in 2021 that more than three-quarters of immigrants working in early care and education were living and working in the United States legally. Nurseries like CentroNía conduct strict background checks on employees, including checking that employees have a work permit.

Along with deportation efforts, the Trump administration in recent months has stripped hundreds of thousands of immigrants of legal status. Many of them had fled violence, poverty or natural disasters in their homes and obtained temporary protected status, which allowed them to live and work legally in the United States, but Trump ended those programs, forcing many to leave their jobs — and the country. Just last month, 300,000 migrants from Venezuela lost their protected status.

Peralta said CentroNía lost two of its employees when they lost their TPS, leaving a Nicaraguan immigrant working as a teacher on his own. Tierra Encantada, which runs Spanish-language preschools in several states, let go of dozens of teachers when they lost their TPS.

The fear affects even those who are in the United States legally

At CentroNía, ICE detained an employee while she was walking in the street and held her for several hours, all the while unable to contact her colleagues to inform them of her whereabouts. She was released that evening, said school site director Juangeli Hernandez Figueroa.

Another employee, teacher Edelmira Kitchen, said she was stopped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on her way to work in September. The officials asked her to get out of her car so they could question her. Kitchen, an American citizen who immigrated from the Dominican Republic as a child, said she refused, and they eventually let her go.

“I felt my rights were violated,” Kitchen said.

Read more: A majority of U.S. adults say child care costs are a “big problem,” and half want government help, according to AP-NORC poll

ICE’s increased presence during federal intervention in the city took a toll on employees’ mental health, Hernandez-Figueroa said. Some have gone to the hospital because of panic attacks in the middle of the school day.

When the city sent mental health counselors to the school earlier this year as part of a partnership with the behavioral health department, school leadership had them work with teachers rather than students, fearing their struggles would spill over into the classroom.

“If the teachers aren’t good, the kids won’t be good either,” Hernandez-Figueroa said.

It’s not just adults who feel more anxious. At Guidepost Montessori School in Portland, Oregon, teachers noticed a change in preschoolers in the weeks after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest near the school in July. After a father who was driving his child to school was stopped, officials confronted him in the school parking lot and attempted to arrest him. In the ensuing commotion, the school was put on lockdown: the children were taken off the playground, and the teachers played loud music and made the children sing along to mask the screaming.

Amy Lomanto, who heads the school, said teachers have noticed more tantrums among students, and more students have retreated to what the school calls the “regulation station,” an area in the main office with fidget toys that kids can use to calm themselves.

She said what happened at her school confirmed that even affluent communities, like the ones the school serves, are not immune from these types of events.

“In the current situation, more and more of us are likely to experience this type of shock,” she said. “This level of fear now permeates throughout our community.”