{"id":183132,"date":"2026-03-08T12:13:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T12:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/183132\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T12:13:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T12:13:07","slug":"immigration-enforcement-hits-florida-school-enrollment-attendance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/183132\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration enforcement hits Florida school enrollment, attendance"},"content":{"rendered":"

In early January, an Apopka mother heard reports of ICE raids<\/a> near her daughter\u2019s Orange County elementary school. Terrified, the immigrant from Honduras texted her five-year-old\u2019s teacher.<\/p>\n

The teacher messaged back: \u201cDo what you think is better for you and your family.\u201d And so she kept her daughter out of school for a week.<\/p>\n

Since then, the kindergartner has missed another five days of school because her mother, who doesn\u2019t have legal immigration status, worried getting her to and from campus might lead to an interaction with police and then detention. She has a two-year-old, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to be separated from my daughters\u2026 I don\u2019t know what would become of me,\u201d said Yessi, 28, who spoke in Spanish and asked to be identified only by her first name so as not to draw the attention of U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n

Children from immigrant families across Central Florida are now in the same spot as Yessi\u2019s daughter, often missing school because their parents feel home is a safer option given the Trump administration\u2019s immigration crackdown.<\/p>\n

Other students have simply left, as families have been detained, deported or decided to move away.<\/p>\n

Statewide, school enrollment is expected to be down by about 46,000 students this year<\/a>. State demographers, in a January report, blamed the \u201cchilling effects\u201d of President Donald Trump\u2019s immigration policies as a leading cause for the plunge.<\/p>\n

There are no specific estimates for how many immigrant students have left Florida\u2019s public schools, and the wider availability of state-paid vouchers to cover private school tuition and lower birth rates also have contributed to the overall enrollment decline. But the number of students statewide taking English for Speakers of Other Languages classes has dropped by more than 17,000 this year, according to the report by Florida\u2019s Office of Economic and Demographic Research, in perhaps a more precise measure of immigrant exits.<\/p>\n

In Orange County, school district officials acknowledged the loss of immigrant students has contributed to a steep enrollment decline and plans to shutter seven schools<\/a> this summer. As an example, they said about 1,200 Venezuelan youngsters have left their public schools this academic year.<\/p>\n

Missing weeks of school<\/p>\n

For immigrant children who remain enrolled, the risk of academic failure is increasing as absences pile up, undermining the dream of an American education that was often a key reason their parents came to the United States.<\/p>\n

One mother from Venezuela, who spoke in Spanish and asked that her name not be used, said her daughter has missed about two weeks of school so far this year because the family feared ICE enforcement was taking place near the campus of Renaissance Charter School at Goldenrod in east Orange.<\/p>\n

The daughter, an eighth grader at the school who is usually a straight-A student, received one D on her last report card.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll you have to do is study and get good grades to get scholarships,\u201d the mother recalled telling her daughter. \u201cAnd she told me \u2018For what, Mom? If these people want us out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The mother, who is seeking asylum in the U.S., said she has altered her family\u2019s daily routines to limit the risk of encountering immigration agents \u2014 even paying another parent who is a citizen $100 a week to drive her daughter to and from school.<\/p>\n

She also pulled her daughter out of extracurriculars, such as sports and music rehearsals, because getting her home would mean driving, and the accompanying risk of being stopped by law enforcement and detained.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHow do the kids feel? Frustrated, terrorized,\u201d the mother said.<\/p>\n

Thomas Kennedy, a policy analyst and consultant with the Florida Immigrant Coalition, said immigrants\u2019 fears related to school make sense based on the Trump administration\u2019s and Florida\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

In Florida, all law enforcement agencies in the state are now required to enforce federal immigration laws, and it\u2019s made driving even more risky for immigrants without legal status, some of whom cannot get licenses in Florida and many states.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration revoked a Biden-era policy prohibiting immigration enforcement operations in protected areas, including school campuses, making some immigrants fearful they could be detained when they drop off or pick up their children.<\/p>\n

ICE\u2019s actions in Chicago and Minnesota were broadcast widely, and those \u201caggressive enforcement practices\u201d likely tie into student absences and departures, Kennedy said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rhetoric speaks for itself \u2026 The climate speaks for itself. It\u2019s causing obvious fear,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Florida\u2019s public schools have struggled with high student absenteeism<\/a> and sought ways to encourage youngsters to make school a priority again, knowing lots of absences correlate with poor grades and lower standardized test scores.<\/p>\n

Now, immigration enforcement is working against those efforts.<\/p>\n

Even if students are in class, their families\u2019 fear can still impact their studies, as some struggle to focus on school work when they don\u2019t know for certain if their parents will be there when they get home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is disruptive to the school environment,\u201d said Sophia Rodriguez, a professor of educational policy and sociology at New York University, who is conducting a national study on teachers\u2019 perspective of the immigration crackdown. \u201cI\u2019ve had educators tell me that kids are terrified. They\u2019re coming to school crying.\u201d<\/p>\n

As engagement in school decreases, educational access and social mobility will be impacted, too, Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n

Another Venezuelan mother awaiting a decision on her asylum case spoke about her nine-year-old daughter\u2019s school struggles after a recent appointment at an ICE office in Orlando.<\/p>\n

The woman, who also spoke in Spanish and asked not to be named, said it is hard for her child to focus in class. She thinks immigration worries led to her daughter\u2019s poor performance on FAST, the state\u2019s standardized exam.<\/p>\n

But the woman, who came to the U.S. in 2021, said school is now less important than avoiding detention. She places a tracker in her daughter\u2019s shoe every day and checks social media to see if there\u2019s police near her home or the school.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I were to have any suspicions about her being in danger because of raids by the school, she\u2019s not going anymore,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Core part of the American dream\u2019<\/p>\n

Maria Salamanca, the vice chair of the Orange County School Board, understands why some immigrant parents are hesitant to send their children to school.<\/p>\n

In 1999, when she was in first grade, Salamanca came to the U.S. with her family from Colombia. Throughout her school years, her parents warned her never to talk about their immigration status to anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not feel like any future was guaranteed for me from when I came in 1999 all the way till I became a citizen. I never took any days for granted,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But Salamanca credits OCPS teachers with guiding her to academic success after she arrived in Orlando as a 7-year-old who knew no English. She landed at the University of California, Berkeley, she has said, because of her public education.<\/p>\n

And she is saddened that one of the schools she attended \u2014 McCoy Elementary School \u2014 is among the seven slated to be closed because enrollment has plummeted.<\/p>\n

Her message to other immigrant families is to remember that education is a key reason many came to this country. Immigrant families need to \u201cbalance their concerns with the reasons why they\u2019re here,\u201d Salamanca said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you take one core part of that American dream away, which is education, then that\u2019s not what you came here for,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Yessi, the mother who came from Honduras in 2021, said her daughter\u2019s education is important but not the family\u2019s top concern now.<\/p>\n

And if the girls\u2019 father, also a Honduran national, were to be detained, Yessi said she\u2019ll go back to Honduras with her children, even though the younger one is a U.S. citizen, with her oldest leaving another empty spot in public school.<\/p>\n

Her partner is the sole breadwinner for the family as he has a work permit, and without him, Yessi said, the family\u2019s dreams would be \u201con hold.\u201d For now, their lives are dictated by their worries.<\/p>\n

All police officers make Yessi anxious, even the one at her daughter\u2019s school, though she knows school resource officers are stationed there to keep children safe. \u201cWhen I see a cop I get nervous but I just pretend I didn\u2019t see them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

If she doesn\u2019t send her daughter to school, Yessi makes up excuses. \u201cI tell her that there\u2019s no school or that we have an emergency or that I feel sick, things like that. She\u2019s barely five and she won\u2019t understand,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her daughter is usually so excited to go back that she spends the whole day talking to her friends during class, Yessi said. The kindergartner dreams of becoming a police officer, a doctor or maybe a firefighter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I see that my daughter has dreams like that, I feel like I want to fix it but I don\u2019t know what to do,\u201d Yessi said. \u201cEven though I\u2019m scared, sometimes I wanna leave, but sometimes I want to keep fighting,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In early January, an Apopka mother heard reports of ICE raids near her daughter\u2019s Orange County elementary school.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[409,28,30,29,16405,86283,86281,9071,4719,86284,86282],"class_list":["post-183132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-donald-trump","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-ice-raids","tag-immigrant-children","tag-immigrant-families","tag-public-school","tag-school-district","tag-school-enrollment","tag-yessi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}