A recent surge of federal law enforcement activity in Washington, D.C., has stoked fear among immigrant families and disrupted attendance at neighborhood schools, parents, teachers and volunteers said.
Parents said arrests in normally quiet blocks left children afraid to travel to school and, in some cases, forced families to keep students home after relatives were detained and later deported. Educators and community members described volunteers organizing walking escorts, students sleeping in their parents' beds and younger children missing days of classes because of anxiety over the presence of federal agents.
A Guatemalan mother of three who has lived in the United States without authorization for more than a decade said she has been too frightened to take her two sons to their nearby charter school since her husband was stopped by local police, later detained in Virginia and ultimately deported. She spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity, saying she feared being targeted by immigration authorities. Her older two children, both U.S. citizens born in the district, missed school while she considered how to keep them safe and obtain child care.
“In my community, the impact has been immense fear and terror that is threatening student safety getting to and from school every day,” said Ben Williams, a high school social studies teacher and member of the District of Columbia State Board of Education. “It is really making everyone feel on edge every day as to whether someone, a community member or a parent or someone that is close or connected to the community, could be taken.”
Residents of Mount Pleasant, a neighborhood where affluent rowhouses sit near more affordable apartments, described masked federal agents patrolling streets and neighbors documenting arrests. Raul Cortez, an immigrant from El Salvador, said his 7-year-old son has become deeply afraid of police after watching agents in the neighborhood. Volunteers in bright orange vests began organizing “walking buses” — groups of adults who accompany children on foot from apartment buildings to school — and stationed themselves at corners near Bancroft Elementary, which serves students in both English and Spanish.
Research has linked immigration enforcement near schools to declines in academic outcomes for Latino students, who are more likely to have family ties to immigrants. After President Donald Trump in January directed the Department of Homeland Security to rescind a prior memorandum that had restricted officers from entering schools and churches without a supervisor’s approval, DHS issued guidance urging officers to exercise discretion and “a healthy dose of common sense” before entering school campuses. The change coincided with a broader federal push to deploy agents to streets in several cities.
School officials gave mixed accounts of the effect on attendance. Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn said attendance at the start of the school year was roughly on par with the previous year. D.C. Public Schools, which serves about half of the district’s students, said it could not provide data on attendance during the federal intervention. Williams and other educators who represent schools serving large immigrant communities said some schools have seen notable drops in daily attendance.
Across the country, districts reported lower attendance in the months after the January directive. A study by Stanford economist Thomas Dee and Big Local News found that immigration raids in California’s Central Valley in January and February coincided with a 22% spike in student absences relative to the previous two school years. Nationally, the Pew Research Center estimated in 2023 that 4.6 million U.S.-born children lived with at least one parent who did not have authorization to be in the country, and another 1.5 million children were themselves without legal permission.
The nation’s two largest teachers unions filed a lawsuit challenging the federal crackdown, arguing that fear created by arrests near campuses has led some children to drop out of school. Homeland Security officials responded that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have not entered school buildings to make arrests. “ICE is not conducting enforcement operations at, or ‘raiding,’ schools. ICE is not going to schools to make arrests of children,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
Legal and education advocates say the chilling effect can extend beyond school property. Emma Leheny, an education attorney who served at the federal Education Department under President Joe Biden, said even the impression that agents could approach schools or neighborhoods is enough to produce pervasive fear. “As ICE encircles our local schools or leaves us with the impression that they might, the effect is an immediate chill that extends beyond the school building into the neighborhood and the community,” Leheny said.
Community members said the consequences go beyond missed days. The Guatemalan mother described her sons waking in the night and crying; she said they now sleep in her bed and that her older son’s aspiration to become a doctor and another child’s dream of becoming a police officer felt diminished. Without child care and fearing deportation, she said she is contemplating returning to Guatemala.
Educators and advocates said the short-term disruptions could have long-term consequences for children's academic progress and mental health. They urged clear policies and communication from law enforcement and school officials to reduce fear and ensure safe access to education. Federal officials maintained that enforcement is focused on public safety threats and that schools remain off-limits for arrests, while community groups pressed for stronger protections for students and families.
As federal agents are dispatched to other cities, school districts and immigrant advocates said they will continue to monitor attendance and student well-being and to organize community responses, such as walking escorts and legal aid, to help families navigate the enforcement actions and their impacts on children’s education.