In January, the Trump administration rescinded a longstanding federal policy memo that designated schools as protected areas from immigration enforcement. In the months that followed, the Department of Homeland Security launched multiple immigration enforcement campaigns across the country.
While Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, officers had not, as of early December, conducted arrests or interrogations inside schools, many district and school leaders spent much of this year addressing fear and concerns from immigrant families, establishing protocols for what to do if ICE officers seek access to campus, and sometimes publicly advocating for students and families detained by officers off campus.
To better understand how immigration policy intersected with education this year, the EdWeek Research Center, which regularly conducts national surveys of K-12 educators on a variety of education topics, included survey questions related to immigrant students’ rights and immigration enforcement.
Here are some of the key findings from these national surveys.
Political divides exist regarding educators’ views on students’ rights
In 2024, the EdWeek Research Center noticed, for the first time, an uptick in open-ended survey responses expressing frustration with the federal requirements that schools must provide supplemental support so English learners can acquire the English language.
That observation prompted survey questions sent out to educators in January and February this year that explicitly asked whether they supported federal laws mandating support for English learners, and mandating access to free, public education for undocumented students.
When responses were broken down by voting behavior in the 2024 presidential election, a partisan divide emerged.
Educators were asked: If the inability to speak and understand the English language excludes K-12 students from effective participation in learning, federal laws require public schools to teach students English. What is your view of these laws?
Eighty-seven percent of respondents who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris said they support these laws, compared with 63% of those who voted for now-President Donald Trump. Four percent of Harris voters opposed these laws, compared with 14% of Trump voters.
Similarly, 85% of Harris voters said they favored laws requiring public schools to educate immigrant students, regardless of whether the students or their parents are legally permitted to reside in the United States. That’s compared with 31% of Trump voters in favor.
About 41% of Trump voters opposed such mandates, compared with 3% of Harris voters.
And on the topic of immigration enforcement, 99% percent of Harris voters felt immigration officials should not be permitted to make arrests or carry out raids in schools, compared with 58% of Trump voters. Thirty-seven percent of Trump voters said they were in favor of ICE activity in the schools or district offices where they personally work, compared with 2% of Harris voters.
Experts and advocates have noted that such views on students’ rights can affect the quality of education for English learners and immigrant students.
When students are detained, educators look to districts for advocacy
This summer, the EdWeek Research Center sought to understand what steps educators and districts were willing to take in the event that a student was detained by ICE off campus as immigration enforcement campaigns grew across the country.
Forty-seven percent of surveyed educators said they would want their district to advocate for a student’s release if a student were apprehended by immigration agents off campus for reasons related to immigration violations that are civil (not criminal). More elementary and middle school teachers and principals (59% and 53%, respectively) said their district should advocate for a student’s release than those working at the high school level (28%).
When asked whether they personally would advocate for a student’s release, educators expressed more hesitancy, with 44% saying it depends.
The particulars of a student’s case and whether they felt prepared to effectively assist were the top factors educators said they would weigh when deciding whether to advocate for a student’s release. Legal liability was the top reason educators gave for not advocating for a student’s release.
Educators report fear, anxiety due to immigration enforcement
This fall, the EdWeek Research Center wanted to capture the immediate ripple effects from stepped-up immigration enforcement.
About half of all educators surveyed who work with immigrant families said their students have expressed fear or anxiety this school year as a result of federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Thirty-five percent of educators working with immigrant families cited no impact from federal enforcement on their students, while 24% reported reduced student attendance, and an equal share said their students were experiencing distraction or lack of engagement in class.
Of those who reported fear and anxiety among their students, 75% said that fear or anxiety is interfering with student learning “some” or “a lot.”
Educators were also asked whether their school or district had any protocols in place for what to do if ICE officers sought access to a school building or student information.
Seventy-one percent said such a protocol was in place, while 29% percent said there are no such protocols in place.
District leaders and immigrant student advocates have said that immigration protocols both keep students safe and help address fear and anxiety that’s affecting student learning.
