Nine days after President Donald Trump signed executive orders intended to crack down on illegal immigration, Damaris Alvarado-Rodriguez closed a classroom at one of her child care centers in Philadelphia.
Despite having green cards, the teachers in that classroom, which serves 1-year-olds, were too nervous to come to work. Since Trump took office, his officials have targeted Philadelphia and other so-called sanctuary cities that limit their cooperation on immigration enforcement. Immigration agents have been a constant presence in the neighborhoods that house Alvarado-Rodriguez’s three centers.
“I’m really afraid of how this is going to impact our children, families and our staff,” she said.
At a home-based program in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Maggie, 47, who was a lawyer before she emigrated from Mexico 10 years ago, has also seen the swift effects of the executive orders. Five of the 12 children enrolled in her care quit showing up. Through an interpreter, Maggie said parents are leaving their young children with older siblings or grandparents instead of with her, leaving home only to work so they are out of sight from law enforcement as much as possible. Nationwide, 1 in 4 children under the age of 6 has at least one foreign-born parent, according to The Center for Law and Social Policy. The vast majority of these children of immigrants — 96 percent — are American citizens. (The Hechinger Report is not using the full names of some of those interviewed because they fear for their safety.)
“The parents said, ‘We’re just going to wait for things to calm down,’” Maggie said.
In America, 1 in 5 child care workers is an immigrant. In big cities like New York, immigrants make up more than 40 percent of the child care workforce. In Los Angeles, it’s nearly 50 percent.
“In the care economy, immigrants are a backbone of this work,” said Erica Phillips, executive director of the National Association for Family Child Care. These early educators are “dedicating themselves to providing one of the most essential and impactful services to young children across the nation.”
Trump’s executive orders threaten that backbone, experts say. Among other changes, the orders expand the rules about which immigrants can be deported quickly, without a hearing; require some who are not citizens to register and submit fingerprints; and restrict work permits.
Related: Young children have unique needs and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues.
The situation feels more dire than in previous years, several child care providers said. The current administration has set daily quotas for immigrant arrests, arresting more immigrants each day than the average under the Biden administration. That includes many without criminal records, who were not targets of enforcement under former President Joe Biden. Trump is also pushing for measures that would revoke the legal status of millions of people by ending birthright citizenship.
America can ill afford to lose child care staff. Many programs already struggle with chronic turnover, which can create instability in the lives of the children in their care. Turnover rates in the child care industry are 65 percent higher than the median in other industries. Low wages — the average child care worker makes $13.07 an hour — make it hard to recruit staff. Caregivers often lack benefits and can make more working in fast food or retail roles. The pandemic sapped the workforce, and it has been slow to recover. In response to a shortage of child care workers, several states have tried to pass laws allowing teenagers to work in those classrooms.
“We’re already starting from a place where there’s not enough child care, programs are struggling and the workforce is already experiencing incredible stress,” said Lea Austin, executive director of the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley. “We can only expect that this is going to further devastate the entire early care and education ecosystem.”
The country has long turned to immigrants for caregiving jobs, including in child care and other hard-to-staff work, such as elder care. Immigrants are especially likely to serve as “friend, family and neighbor” caregivers, taking on the informal and flexible care arrangements that are most popular with parents.
By filling these caregiving roles, immigrants enable other parents to work. An estimated 142,000 undocumented immigrants work as nannies and personal care or home health aides nationwide, creating “a ripple effect of productivity throughout the economy,” according to research by the Center for American Progress. In New York City, the majority of the city’s 14,000 nannies are immigrants.
Related: Grandparents, neighbors and friends are propping up the child care industry. They need help
In northern California, Adriana, a 27-year-old who emigrated from Mexico two years ago said she wants to start working, and recently was offered a job with a large company. But first she needs to find child care for her 3-month-old, and she worries about being separated from her baby by immigration officials. “I am scared, especially because it sounds like they’ll be able to come into my place of work,” she said through an interpreter. “I worry about leaving my child alone.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to multiple requests for comment. One of Trump’s executive orders, signed shortly after he took office, undid restrictions that kept ICE from raiding schools and child care programs.
Immigration policy can have a chilling effect on communities, causing immigrants to shy away from jobs that could increase their visibility to law enforcement agencies, said Chris Herbst, an associate professor at Arizona State University who studied the policy’s impact on child care between 2008 and 2014. Because America’s child care system is so reliant on the work of immigrants, “the impacts are instantaneous,” he added.
In Albuquerque, Ana directs a child care program that serves 50 local families, most of whom are American citizens. Ana left Mexico in 2020 with her husband and young son when violence ramped up in their home state of Sinaloa, and now worries she could be deported. That kind of worry is shared by her staff: Three of her 14 staff members have stopped coming to work, afraid of immigration raids.
Recently, Ana and her husband gathered some belongings in case they are detained. To prepare, they are also considering notarizing a document to grant custody of their 3-year-old, who is an American citizen, and their 8-year-old, who is not, to a family member. “What’s motivating us is to improve the situation of our families, to live in better places and to increase the opportunities for our children,” she said. “We hope that [immigration officials] go out after criminals and not try to follow or go after people who are good, working people.”
Related: Parents on the hunt for child care say it feels like ‘The Hunger Games’
Elida Cruz runs a child care program in central California that serves children of migrant workers. For some of the parents, she said the fear is palpable; she and her husband now deliver groceries and transport children to and from their child care program so the parents can limit time away from home. Her husband developed a code word with one family, which he says three times so the parents know it’s safe to open their door.
Cruz, like many other child care providers, has been trying to educate immigrant families about their rights by sharing resources and handing out “red cards” that advise people on what to do if they are approached by immigration officers. In addition to worrying about the effects on families and children, she worries what will happen if those families leave. “Financially, it would be devastation of my business,” she said. “I would literally close. It would leave me without any clients, no children at all,” she added. “Our businesses are just gonna collapse, because we all depend on the field workers.”
It may only be a matter of time: Even the young children in her care seem aware things could change at any moment. “It’s heartbreaking to see the children’s little faces, full of scaredness,” she said. One child asked if immigration officials would come to her center.
Cruz told him the only thing she could think of, even though she knew it was a white lie.
“I was like, ‘You know why they’re not going to come in here? … Because they don’t even have our address, so they don’t know we’re here, mijo.’”
Camilla Forte contributed reporting.
Contact staff writer Jackie Mader at 212-678-3562 or mader@hechingerreport.org.
This story about Trump deportations was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
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Nine days after President Donald Trump signed executive orders intended to crack down on illegal immigration, Damaris Alvarado-Rodriguez closed a classroom at one of her child care centers in Philadelphia. Despite having green cards, the teachers in that classroom, which serves 1-year-olds, were too nervous to come to work. Since Trump took office, his officials
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