Soon after President Donald Trump took office in January, staff at CentroNía, a bilingual preschool, began practicing what to do if Immigration and Customs Enforcement showed up. By summer, as ICE became a regular presence in the school’s predominantly Latino neighborhood, teachers stopped taking children to local parks, libraries, and playgrounds that had once extended the classroom beyond its walls.
In October, the school canceled its beloved Hispanic Heritage Month parade, an annual celebration where immigrant parents dressed children in costumes and soccer jerseys from their home countries. ICE had started stopping staff members legally authorized to work in the U.S. and school officials feared drawing unwanted attention.
The fear was amplified when ICE arrested a teacher inside a Spanish immersion preschool in Chicago that same month. Child care workers and families across the country suddenly felt the fragility of their daily routines.
Trump’s drive for historic deportations has hit the child care sector hard. The industry relies heavily on immigrants and already faces a shortage of workers. Many immigrant teachers and preschool staff, most living and working in the U.S. legally, report constant anxiety over potential ICE encounters. Some have left the field, while others were pushed out due to shifting immigration policies.
“At CentroNía, all staff must have legal status and work authorization,” said CEO Myrna Peralta. Yet ICE’s presence has reshaped how the school functions.
“That really dominates all of our decision making,” Peralta said in a report by the AP.
Instead of walks around the neighborhood, teachers now push children in strollers through hallways. A classroom was transformed into a miniature library after the school ended a partnership with a local public library.
Previously, schools and child care centers were largely off-limits to ICE, protecting children from harm. Those protections were eliminated shortly after Trump took office, replaced with guidance for ICE agents to use “common sense.”
Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, defended ICE’s Chicago preschool operation. She explained the teacher, who had a work permit and was later released, had been a passenger in a car pursued by ICE. She ran into the school during the chase. “She was arrested in the vestibule, not in the school,” McLaughlin said. ICE arrested the driver inside the building.
READ ALSO: Zohran Mamdani schools immigrant New Yorkers on their right to say no to ICE
Nationwide, roughly 20% of child care workers are foreign-born, and 20% are Latino. In major cities like Washington, D.C., New York, and Los Angeles, immigrants make up about 40% of the child care workforce, according to UC Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. Immigrant teachers often hold higher education degrees and help meet growing demand for Spanish-language preschools like CentroNía, where parents aim to give their children a head start in a second language.
The American Immigration Council estimated in 2021 that over 75% of immigrant early care workers live and work in the U.S. legally. Schools like CentroNía conduct thorough background checks to ensure all staff have proper work authorization.
Recent policy changes have further disrupted lives. The Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status programs, stripping legal status from hundreds of thousands who fled violence, poverty, or disasters abroad. Last month alone, 300,000 Venezuelans lost protected status.
CentroNía lost two employees when their TPS expired, and a Nicaraguan teacher resigned. Tierra Encantada, which operates Spanish immersion preschools in multiple states, saw a dozen teachers leave under similar circumstances.
Some encounters with ICE have been immediate and traumatic. One CentroNía staff member was detained while walking and held for hours without being able to contact colleagues. Teacher Edelmira Kitchen, a U.S. citizen from the Dominican Republic, was stopped by ICE on her way to work in September. Officials asked her to exit her car; she refused and was eventually released.
“I felt violated of my rights,” Kitchen said.
Joangelee Hernández-Figueroa, the school’s site director, said the constant ICE presence has taken a toll on employees’ mental health. Some teachers experienced panic attacks during school hours. When the city sent mental health consultants earlier this year, they worked with staff rather than students to manage this stress.
“If the teachers aren’t good,” Hernández-Figueroa said, “the kids won’t be good either.”
Even children are affected. At Guidepost Montessori in Portland, Oregon, teachers observed changes in preschoolers after ICE attempted to arrest a father in the school parking lot in July. The school went into lockdown, playgrounds were cleared, and teachers played loud music to mask the chaos.
Amy Lomanto, the school’s director, said the incident revealed that no community, however affluent, is immune to these disruptions.
READ ALSO: Trump administration freezes green cards and immigration for 19 “high-risk” nations
“With the current situation, more and more of us are likely to experience this kind of trauma,” she said. “That level of fear now is permeating a lot more throughout our society.”
