Immigrant student enrollment is dwindling at schools across the US

From Miami to San Diego, schools across the United States are seeing significant enrollment declines for students from immigrant families.

In some cases, parents have been deported or voluntarily returned to their home countries, after President Donald Trump expelled them from a sweeping crackdown on immigration. Others moved to other places within the United States

In many school systems, the biggest factor is that there are far fewer families coming from other countries. With fewer people crossing the U.S. border, officials in small towns and larger cities alike are reporting fewer new incoming students than usual.

In Miami-Dade County Public Schools, about 2,550 students have entered the district from another state so far this school year — down from nearly 14,000 last year, and more than 20,000 the year before that. School board member Luisa Santos, who attended district schools as a young immigrant, said the trend is a “sad reality.”

“I was one of those newcomers when I was 8 years old,” Santos said. “And this country and our public schools — I’ll never tire of saying it — gave me everything.”

Collectively, Miami-Dade’s declining enrollment has wiped about $70 million from the district’s annual budget, forcing officials to scramble to cover unexpected shortfalls.

The decline in immigrant student numbers is increasing pressures on enrollment in many traditional public schools, which have seen an overall decline in numbers due to demographic changes and students choosing alternatives such as private schools and homeschooling. Despite the need for English language instruction and social support, in some areas newcomers have helped boost school enrollment rates and provide per-pupil funding in recent years.

In North Alabama, Albertville City Schools Superintendent Bart Reeves has seen the local economy grow along with its Hispanic population, which has been attracted by the area’s poultry processing plants for decades. Albertville will soon get its first Target store, a sign of the community’s growing prosperity.

The Reeves District is home to one of the largest concentrations of Hispanic students in Alabama, with approximately 60% of them identifying as Hispanic. But the district’s newcomer academy at a local high school has not enrolled any new students, Reeves said.

“That’s not going to happen this year with the borders closed,” said Reeves, who expects the hit to his budget caused by declining school enrollment will cost him about a dozen teacher jobs.

Some students self-deport with their families

One Sunday morning in August, Edna, a 63-year-old immigrant from El Salvador, received the call she had been dreading. Her friend, a mother from Guatemala with seven young children, was detained in Lake Worth, Florida, on immigration charges while out to get breakfast for her children.

The family had prepared for this moment. There were legal documents granting temporary custody of the children to Edna, who asked to be identified only by her first name because she feared immigration enforcement.

“I’ll be here, and we’ll be OK,” she remembers telling her eldest child, a 12-year-old boy.

In the weeks that followed, Edna stayed home with her two younger children and took her five older siblings on the bus every day to attend public schools in Palm Beach County, where enrollment dropped by more than 6,000 students this year. One day in September, all seven children boarded a plane bound for Guatemala to reunite with their mother, leaving behind neighborhood friends, band practices, and the only life they had ever known.

“My house looks like a garden without flowers,” Edna said. “They’re all gone.”

The family now lives in a rural area of ​​Guatemala, far from phone service. Edna said school there had already started for this year, and the mother, who had not attended school as a child, was keeping them at home and considering whether to enroll them next year.

Schools accustomed to new arrivals are seeing far fewer this year

The decline in the number of immigrants coming to the United States is already evident in school enrollment numbers this summer.

Denver Public Schools enrolled 400 new students this summer, compared to 1,500 students the previous summer. Outside Chicago, Waukegan Community School District 60 enrolled 100 fewer new immigrant students. Officials with the Houston Independent School District closed Las Americas Newcomer School, a program for new children in the United States, after enrollment dropped to just 21 students from 111 last year.

This shift is evident in places like Chelsea, Massachusetts, a city outside Boston that has long been a destination for new immigrants. The 6,000-student Chelsea Public Schools system has attracted Central Americans looking for affordable housing, and recently the state has housed newly arrived Haitians in shelters there. This year, the usual influx of new arrivals did not materialize.

“This year was different. Much calmer,” said Daniel Mujica, director of Chelsea’s Parent Information Centre.

Over the summer, 152 newcomers enrolled in Chelsea Public Schools, compared to 592 freshmen the previous summer.

Some also pick up and leave. Since January, 844 students have withdrawn from the district, compared to 805 during the same period last year. A larger proportion of students who leave — nearly a quarter — return to their home countries, Mujica said.

He attributes this in part to the presence of masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers walking the city streets.

“You can feel the fear in the air,” he said.

Teachers worry about students missing out on studying

In San Diego, Principal Fernando Hernandez has enrolled dozens of new incoming students from all over Latin America over the past two years. Many of them made the treacherous trek through the woods of Darien Gap before setting up camp in a park near Perkins K-8 School.

About a third of the students at the school are homeless. Staff have become experts in supporting children facing adversity. As more newcomers arrived, Hernandez watched the Mexican American students change their slang on the playground so their new classmates from Venezuela, Colombia and Peru would understand it better.

But so far this school year, no new students have registered. Other families did not return when the new school year began.

Hernandez fears the effects of the disruption will extend beyond students’ academic progress. He worries that students are missing opportunities to learn how to show empathy, share, disagree, and understand each other.

“This is like a repeat of the pandemic where children are isolated, locked up and not socializing,” he said.

“These kids, they should be in school,” he added.

Natasha, a mother who moved with her family to California after leaving Venezuela, said she tries to avoid going out in public, but continues to send her daughters to school. Natasha, who asked that only her first name be used because she fears immigration enforcement, said she prepares as she drives the girls home each afternoon, checking the road behind her in case there is another car following her.

“I entrust myself to God,” she said.