By Vanessa Aramayo
This is a question many students ask themselves in Los Angeles and cities across the country, where federal immigration enforcement targeting immigrant neighborhoods spiked in June 2025. These raids are keeping students home from school, disrupting education, increasing anxiety, and destabilizing the communities students rely on.
Multilingual learners are the most affected student population because they are more likely to be part of immigrant families,mixed-status households, and they often live in the neighborhoods where enforcement is concentrated. Over 50% of multilingual learners are U.S-born with 44% of those in California being part of immigrant families, meaning enforcement actions, even when not directed at them, create fear and uncertainty. When immigration enforcement reaches apartment complexes, bus stops, and workplaces, multilingual learners feel the ripple effects: missed school days, sudden family disruptions, and heightened stress that makes learning difficult. These raids are eroding the social fabric of the very neighborhoods where multilingual learners live, learn, and rely on community support.
In the Los Angeles area alone, more than 412,000 children have at least one non-citizen parent. Latinos make up nearly half of LA County’s population and represent the majority of multilingual learners in California. The highest concentrations of multilingual learners are located in communities with large immigrant populations, including the San Fernando Valley, Southeast Los Angeles, and neighborhoods surrounding downtown Los Angeles. This overlap means Latino students, already facing barriers to opportunity, are disproportionately experiencing the educational disruptions caused by immigration enforcement.
For Chelsea, a multilingual learner in Southeast Los Angeles, one of the communities most affected by immigration enforcement, the question isn’t theoretical: Will my dad make it home from work today? Like many multilingual learners, Chelsea lives in a neighborhood with a high concentration of immigrant families, where enforcement activity is more visible. Children in her community carry a level of daily uncertainty that their peers in more affluent areas like Brentwood or Beverly Hills may never experience, uncertainty that follows them into the classroom.
Los Angeles is not alone. Cities from Chicago to New Orleans, and then Minneapolis saw federal agents follow the same playbook. School leaders nationwide must prepare for the trauma that immigration enforcement inflicts on students regardless of immigration status. When a child can’t concentrate at school from fear of immigration raids, this becomes an education crisis as well.
Students are missing days, even weeks, of school, afraid to leave home when enforcement activity intensifies in their neighborhoods. Many are not returning at all. This school year, the Los Angeles Unified School District lost more than 13,000 immigrant students, most of them Latina/o, in the months following increased immigration enforcement. Multilingual learner enrollment dropped from more than 75,000 to roughly 62,000 in a single year. These numbers represent empty classroom seats and children whose education has been derailed by forces beyond their control.
When multilingual learners miss weeks or months of instruction, the effects compound over time, delaying reclassification, high school completion, and college access. Absences can delay English proficiency, limit access to advanced coursework, and narrow future economic opportunities. What we are witnessing is not a temporary disruption, but the shaping of an entire generation’s educational and economic trajectory.
When enforcement intensified in Los Angeles just days before schools were preparing to celebrate the end of the 2024-25 school year, the Los Angeles Unified School District stepped up to protect students and support learning. The district established safety perimeters, expanded summer school options to reduce travel distances for families, and increased access to transportation. Community groups also mobilized to provide support, organizing mutual aid networks and rapid response teams.
California has also taken meaningful steps to safeguard students. At the state level, Assembly Bill 49, known as the Safe Haven Schools & Child Care Act, prohibits ICE officers from entering nonpublic areas of schools and childcare facilities without a judicial warrant, subpoena, or court order, and restricts the sharing of student information. Senate Bill 98, the Sending Alerts to Families in Education (SAFE) Act, requires K–12 schools and public colleges and universities to notify campus communities when immigration enforcement is confirmed on site. Locally, sanctuary policies across Southeast Los Angeles cities such as Huntington Park, Lynwood, and Cudahy limit the use of city property for immigration enforcement operations and strengthen protections around residents’ data.
These efforts show what is possible when communities, educators, and policymakers act in alignment. At the same time, there is a need for stronger protections to fully protect multilingual learners, and all students, from the harms of immigration enforcement.
We can no longer treat immigration as separate from education. Enrollment is declining. Students are missing valuable instruction time. Trauma is being inflicted on our students. Our policies must reflect this reality. When we build systems that support students, we build schools and communities that are stronger and safer for everyone.