“You can’t learn if you don’t feel safe.”
By Valeria Uribe
Some names have been changed to protect the identity of people due to heightened scrutiny of immigrant communities.
Lorena’s peaceful life has changed since President Donald Trump’s administration ramped up immigration deportations across the country. As an undocumented immigrant, rumors of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) patrolling the city and detaining immigrants worry her.
But there is one thing that gets her out of the house every day: Taking her three kids to school.
“I live in an area where immigration agents are present and my children have called me and told me ‘No, please don’t come pick us up, stay at work or at home,” Lorena said. “So, in a way, they still feel that fear, that anxiety, that worry, they think ‘What am I gonna do if they take my parents?’”
Lorena has lived in Philadelphia for 30 years. Her friends share their fears with each other, discussing what would happen if they or their children were detained by ICE on their walk to school. Though there have been no confirmed ICE raids at schools, she’s heard rumors of them and stories of other parents not allowing their kids to go to school at all.
But Lorena has kept her kids in school because keeping them home would put more of a spotlight on them, she said.
“In some way, we are making it known that our children are children of parents who don’t have documents,” she said.
To undocumented parents, escalating anti-immigrant sentiment means they and their children can be targeted at any time, adding fear and stress to families with children who already face significant barriers to education, such as language barriers and a lack of adequate translation services.
Latino children recorded lower academic performance and attendance rates compared to their peers in 2024, with 7 out of 10 Latino students enrolled in public schools not scoring at grade level in Math or English and less than half of them achieving a proficient or advanced score in the state’s standardized tests, according to Children’s First, a nonprofit child advocacy organization.
In Pennsylvania, ICE has predominantly arrested people from Latin American countries since Trump’s second inaugaration, including round nearly 1,600 peoplefrom Mexico,about 1450 individuals from Guatemala and about 750 individuals from the Dominican Republic, according to the Deportation Data Project.
The arrests have heightened fears among immigrant parents.
“We are seeing an influx of children in the cyber program who no longer feel safe going to physical schools,” said Jillian Fray, the coordinator of the Aspira Bilingual Cyber Charter School’s English language learner program.
Thought ICE has not entered schools themselves, what scares some parents and students are that they will encounter agents on the journey to and from school, Fray said.
Aspira also offers on-site services to students who are new to the U.S. and those who have special needs. Fray has noticed changes in her students’ behaviour since immigration enforcement ramped up.
“For our younger students, we are seeing a lack of attention because we have some children who come in for on-site support who are either English Learners or students with special needs and their parents no longer feel safe to bring them in,” Fray said. “They have a lot more emotionally going on that they are contending with that you didn’t see two years ago.”
High school students have told Fray that they are anxious to attend school because they fear for their safety.
“Their safety is the utmost important and you can’t learn if you don’t feel safe,” Fray said.
She said children of immigrants are also growing concerned about possibly having to care for their younger siblings in case their parents are deported.
Undocumented and immigrant students have a higher risk of struggling with their mental health in comparison to their peers. Psychological distress, depression, anxiety and acute stress disorders are common among students who are either from immigrant families or do not have documentation, according to a 2021 study by the Journal of Migration and Health.
Lorena has seen signs of stress and anxiety in her children when they talk about immigration and ICE activity in the city. One of her children broke down and started crying in frustration when she was watching the news about a family that was taken by immigration agents.
“It surprised me one day after work, I sat on the couch and I was watching a video of them [ICE] taking a family and then I saw my son, he was playing and all of a sudden he told me, ‘Mom, turn that off, I’m tired of ICE,’” Lorena said.
Lorena said her children have been bullied by classmates who make fun of their immigration status and taunt them.
“They are talking about [ICE raids] everywhere, at school and between classmates,” Lorena said. “Their classmates have told them ‘you don’t have papers,’ things like that.”
Lorena said all of this has impacted her children’s grades as it’s harder for them to focus during classes when they are worried.
“I thought about [not sending my kids to school],” Lorena said. “But at the same time I felt like I couldn’t instill that fear in them because they are just growing, they are developing, so I did not want them to think ‘Oh, the police is a danger to me.’”
Twenty-five percent of students who are currently enrolled in the School District of Philadelphia are Latino, representing the second biggest demographic group within the district. Twenty-one percent of students are English Learners, with more than12,200 having Spanish as their primary language at home, followed by about 2,800 students whose first language is Portuguese, according to the School District of Philadelphia’s 2025-2026 enrollment data.
Latino students scored significantly lower on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment and the Keystone Exams than their peers last academic year. There is around a 10-point gap between Latino students and other children in the same grade in subjects like Algebra I, Biology, Literature and English Language Arts, according to district data.
Fray has seen some pushback from parents when it comes to standardized testing. At Aspira, the PSSA and the Keystone exams have to be taken in person, but some parents do not feel comfortable with their children going in person, she said.
To support Latino families, the School District of Philadelphia created an Immigrant & Refugee Toolkit in 11 different languages to guarantee the safety of students and ensure they and their families feel welcomed. While the Toolkit does not serve as legal advice, it contains important information, including crisis support and health services.
“It speaks to the leadership’s commitment to diversity and equity in our district,” said Tomás Hanna, the district’s associate superintendent of school performance. “For us, what is important is that students come to school, when they are in school, they feel safe, and when they are in school, they are engaged in activities that will value them.”
Schools are not allowed to disclose any information regarding a student to any agency, including ICE or the Philadelphia Police Department, without a court order, according to the District of Philadelphia’s Vision, Mission, and Guardrails and the Federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act.
“I want to say for the last year we have been promulgating this data, this information to our families so they have a sense that number one, the School District of Philadelphia values them,” Hanna said. “Number two, that it is prepared to address challenges that they may have with support so that when young people come to school they feel safe, and they get the best education possible.”
The School District has a protocol in case ICE agents show up. Staff members are advised to notify the Office of General Counsel, where they will be connected with an attorney before proceeding, according to the Immigrant & Refugee Toolkit.
“There has been support in my kid’s school,” Lorena said. “There was a group offering to pick up children from home and drop them off after school. It makes me feel better.”