By fall 2024, Fresno Unified School District student attendance had finally nearly recovered from the heightened absenteeism initiated by pandemic-related school closures, said Carlos Castillo, the district superintendent. Then PresidentDonald Trumpwas elected to his second presidential term with promises to increase deportations of undocumented immigrants. The community in Fresno County, California, has a large, predominantly Hispanic immigrant population. Student attendance at Fresno schools dipped beginning Jan. 20, Trump's inauguration day, and the drop remained through the end of the 2024-2025 school year, which Castillo attributed to fears of immigration raids. "It's heartbreaking because at the root of it is fear of coming to school," Castillo said. "There's a lot of fear from children, even if the children were born here in the United States, because one member of their family was not. They wonder, 'What's going to happen to my uncle, mom, aunt or dad as a result?'" Schools in California's Central Valley serve many immigrant students and children of immigrants, many of whom work in the agriculture and construction industries. A study from Stanford University's Graduate School of Education Professor Thomas Dee offers a quantitative glimpse into how the Trump administration's increase in immigration enforcement has contributed to an increase in student absenteeism across the region as parents keep their kids home from school out of fear of being deportation or family separation. Student absences, especially among younger students, across five California Central Valley school districts increased by 22% on average at the start of Trump's presidency in January and February compared with those in the same time frame during the 2023-2024 and 2022-2023 school years, Dee found. Absenteeism rates were higher among elementary school students than those in upper grades. During those months, Trump signed an executive order to increase immigration enforcement and rescinded a law that barred immigration enforcement officers from entering schools. The Trump administration has doubled the daily immigration arrest rates compared with the past decade, according to Reuters analysis of ICE and White House data. Immigrant students were more likely to hunker down at home when immigration enforcement was active near a school campus, missing crucial lessons to protect their families from being targeted, Dee's research shows. Over the past several months, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hasarrested, detained and deportedseveral immigrant students who attended schools across the nation, in some cases with their parents, includinga fourth grader who lived in Torrance, Californiaand ahigh schooler who lived in Detroit. The drop in attendance in California's Central Valley schools is not isolated. Students enrolled in other schools with large immigrant populations across the nation have also missed school more often since Trump entered the Oval Office, according to multiple accounts from school administrators, teachers and activists who work with immigrant families. Angel Garcia, principal of a Detroit high school, told USA TODAY that fears of deportationscaused "quite a dip"in spring attendance when one of the community's students was arrested off campus and deported. Los Angeles Unified schoolsexperienced a dip in student attendancein some communities where immigration enforcement was reported at the end of last school year, said Britt Vaughan, a spokesperson for the district. Trump sent the National Guard to the nation's second-largest city to break up anti-immigration enforcement protests. Some New York City students alsomissed schooldue to immigration fears after Trump's inauguration at the start of the year,Chalkbeat New Yorkreported. Federal lawrequires all childrenof age, regardless of their immigration status, to regularly attend school. Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, told USA TODAY immigration enforcement is incorrectly blamed for the increases in absenteeism at schools. "Those blaming ICE for low attendance at schools are creating a climate of fear and smearing law enforcement. These smears are contributing to our ICE law enforcement officers facing 1,000% increase in assaults against them," McLaughlin said. "ICE is not conducting enforcement operations at, or 'raiding,' schools. "If a dangerous illegal alien felon were to flee into a school, or a child sex offender is working as an employee, there may be a stuation where an arrest is made to protect public safety. But this has not happened," she said. There have been no recent reports of immigration arrests on school campuses. Several school officials told USA TODAY that families' also fear for their safety on the way to and from school given heightened enforcement in their communities. The White House and the U.S. Department of Education did not directly respond to an inquiry from USA TODAY about the increase in absenteeism at schools with high immigrant populations. Liz Hurston, a spokesperson for the White House, said, "President Trump is committed to delivering the highest-quality education for American students." Ahead of the new school year, K-12 campus leaders, education experts who research attendance trends and advocates who work with immigrant families shared how the Trump's immigration crackdown could affect students and schools facing a spike in absenteeism. "Most obviously, it's keeping kids from instructional time," Dee said. "But I think that's the leading edge of why this matters. Prior evidence shows longer-term, more traumatic consequences for kids like anxiety disorders and long-run impacts on educational attainment." Younger children who have come to the United States within the past few months, referred to by educators as newcomers, are most likely to miss school, said Alejandra Vasquez Baur, founder and director of theNational Newcomer Network, a coalition that advocates for immigrant students. The effects will linger into classrooms this school year and affect schools' ability to teach kids who do show up for school, Dee said. Educators who teach classes with high student absences will have to adjust to the changes and work harder to catch these kids up. Castillo said his district is offering online learning platforms, similar to those used during COVID-19, to some of those kids missing school out of fear of immigration raids. The absences also could havenegative financial implicationsfor some schools in states that fund schools based on student attendance, Dee said. Here are their stories:ICE deported teenagers and children in immigration raids. A student is considered chronically absent when they miss 10% or more of the school year. About 15% of students were chronically absent from schools before the pandemic during the 2018-2019 school year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. In March 2020, many schools across the nation closed and pivoted to remote learning. Some students did not attend online classes and some schools dropped attendance expectations because of the upheaval, teachers and school leaders have told USA TODAY. Chronic absenteeism spiked to 31% in the 2021-2022 school year, federal data shows. The trend reversed, with the rate dropping to 28% in the 2022-2023 school year, but attendance hasn't returned to pre-pandemic levels,according to datafrom the National Center for Education Statistics. The most recent data from aRAND Corporation surveyof district leaders shows about 22% of the nation's K-12 public school students – 10.8 million of them – were chronically absent during the 2024-2025 school year. Ananalysis of the post-pandemic absenteeism trendfrom think tank RAND Corporation's researchers attributes focuses on lingering effects of the pandemic. "The urgent need to recover from pandemic learning loss will be severely hampered by current rates of chronic absenteeism, making it the most pressing post-pandemic problem in public schools," readsan analysison school attendance rates from the American Enterprise Institute, another think tank. Today, young people experience more mental health challenges and teachers are more absent than before the pandemic, "which some suspect might make in-person attendance less compelling for students." The RAND researchers also found that families' attitudes around attending school has changed. Parents are more likely to keep kids home for minor illnesses since the pandemic and allow their children to miss school. It's also easier to pass classes without consistently attending because teachers are more likely to simply allow students to make up the schoolwork they missed without penalty, according to RAND's research. Attendance typically drops in the days surrounding an immigration raid, but that doesn't necessarily mean student needs to be "chronically absent" if teachers and school staff can get them to school after anxiety from the raid subsides. A student needs to miss about 18 days to fall into that category. "Kids and families during an ICE raid will feel nervous, but if you really have strong family engagement and make them feel school is safe for their kids, and show them how valuable it is, then they will have a better chance of getting them to school on all other days," said Hedy Chang, founder and executive director of the nonprofit initiative Attendance Works. Schools will have a big task to get these kids to school this year, she said. Five reasons kids are missing school:Chronic absenteeism is schools' 'biggest problem.' Some teachers are worried about protecting their students from immigration enforcement heading into the new school year and are making online learning arrangements to accommodate them, Castillo and other school leaders told USA TODAY. In Fresno and other areas with high immigrant populations, school officials are training teachers on how to talk to families to encourage them to come to school and on what to do if there is an immigration raid on campus. "Teachers are very worried, and we feel like administrators are the first line of defense," he said. "Most site leaders have been brought to tears, upset about what's going on. There's frustration and sadness overall." Stacy David Gates, a high school history teacher who leads the teachers union that represents educators across Chicago Public Schools, said teachers there are "navigating this how we did in 2016" when Trump was elected to his first presidential term "by talking to families to help make sure they are accommodating students" and "have safe passage to and from school." "I'm worried about attendance. I'm worried about the social and emotional health of our young people. I'm worried about supports school workers are going to need in this moment in chaos," she said. Back in Fresno, Castillo is preparing for the just-begun school year ahead. "We were just getting close to normal attendance in some places," he said. "Now, we're back to something else causing the fear." Contact Kayla Jimenez at kjimenez@usatoday.com. Follow her on X at @kaylajjimenez. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Is Trump immigration crackdown worsening school absenteeism?
