Corrected: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Sophia Rodriguez, an associate professor of educational policy at New York University.
Educators took on an expanded role, and bore an emotional toll, in caring for immigrant students this past school year as the presence of federal immigration agents in their communities grew.
That is a key finding in a qualitative report published Aug. 4 by Sophia Rodriguez, an associate professor of educational policy at New York University, in partnership with the National Immigration Law Center.
The report, based on interviews with 37 educators across 14 states, from January to April 2026, adds to research showing how the Trump administration’s heightened immigration enforcement efforts have increasingly intersected with public education.
In January 2025, the Trump administration rescinded a longstanding policy that previously shielded schools and school bus stops from immigration enforcement activity. Since then, educators across the country have reported a marked increase in federal agents operating in school communities, and at times near school sites.
In Pennsylvania, educators told Rodriguez that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were present in their community a handful of times in prior years. This year, spotting agents in the neighborhood felt more like a weekly occurrence.
“That frequency of the surveillance and presence was something that really stood out to me in this particular study and in this particular moment,” Rodriguez said.
In an emailed statement on Aug. 10, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said, “ICE is not going to schools to make arrests.”
Most recently in June, ICE agents arrested a couple at the dropoff line of the Commodore John Rodgers Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore.
Educators report enrollment drops
Educators told Rodriguez that they witnessed enrollment drops this past school year as immigrant families feared for their safety from immigration enforcement.
In some cases, schools expecting to enroll hundreds of newcomer immigrant students only enrolled a few dozen.
An EdWeek Research Center survey conducted March 25 to May 5 of 753 district leaders, principals, and teachers nationwide found that 18% of respondents working with immigrant students reported a decline in enrollment tied to immigration enforcement and 39% reported increased student absences.
A working paper from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University published in April similarly found that immigration enforcement actions, such as raids in a community, could lead to sustained student absences.
Educators told Rodriguez they are taking various steps to build safety and trust with immigrant families, including assigning school staff to chaperone students to school who live near campus and offering parent-teacher conferences and other family engagement activities online for families who fear leaving their home and potentially running into immigration agents.
School leaders have previously also discussed helping families make emergency plans in the event parents or guardians get detained, and children get left behind.
Educators’ workload expands due to immigration concerns
The need for updated safety protocols concerning ICE presence near a school or school bus stop has complicated educators’ day-to-day work of instruction and taken a personal emotional toll as well.
“It was hard to have instruction when all of this social-emotional distress and trauma was occurring in many of these communities,” Rodriguez said about educators’ comments.
In February, school leaders in heavily impacted districts such as St. Paul in Minnesota, where large-scale immigration enforcement operations upended the metro area for weeks, reported a significant increase in mental health needs among students.
In the May EdWeek Research Center Survey, 57% of educators working with immigrant students reported fear and anxiety among students tied to immigration enforcement.
Rodriguez found that the emotional toll was felt by educators as well.
Teachers found themselves at a loss for how to comfort students who asked them about the agents they saw in their neighborhoods. One middle school teacher interviewed for the report who is an immigrant herself said it hurt to hear a student ask what would happen if they got home and discovered their father was no longer there.
“Even if they did or didn’t have that lived experience as an immigrant, they still were feeling the kind of acute impacts of the work and the stress and the worry,” Rodriguez said.
