Public schools report Latino enrollment declines under Trump migrant crackdown

Some urban public school districts are reporting fewer Hispanics enrolled this fall, driven primarily by the Trump administration’s push to deport illegal immigrants.

Systems in Miami, Chicago and Denver have released preliminary estimates that fewer Latin Americans registered this fall.

Education insiders say that self-deportation and the fear of arrest have fueled the trend. They also cite new Trump administration paperwork and language requirements that could reveal immigration status.

“The federal administration has declared English as the official language in the U.S., which has led to revised rules that mean schools do not need to accommodate English learners as they have in the past,” said Sara Rimm-Kaufman, a professor of education at the University of Virginia.

Several of the declines reverse a surge in immigrant students under the Biden administration that briefly offset falling U.S. birth rates.

Denver Public Schools reported that new immigrants jacked up enrollment during the 2023-24 school year, interrupting a long decline caused by smaller families and rising housing costs.

“We do not have the official enrollment numbers for the current school year, but we anticipate our attendance data to show a decrease of approximately 1,200 students over the previous year,” Scott Pribble, a Denver Public Schools spokesman, said in an email. “This is a larger decline than anticipated.”

He said the enrollment drop has already necessitated “difficult cuts” to district budgets.

Chicago Public Schools reported that 316,224 students registered for class this fall. That’s down 9,081 students from fall 2024 and reversed two straight years of increases after decades of decline.

The largest decline occurred among Latino students, whose enrollment dropped from 153,820 in fall 2024 to 146,862 this year.

On Oct. 28, Chicago also reported a 0.7-percentage point increase in Latino student absences from a year ago due to fear of “increased federal presence” from immigration officers in the city.

“Chicago Public Schools remains steadfast in our commitment to keeping classrooms open and ensuring that every student has the opportunity to continue learning in person, even as our school communities navigate the impact of recent federal immigration enforcement activity,” said Mary Fergus, a Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman.

Florida has reported similar issues.

Roughly 2,500 immigrant students entered Miami-Dade County Public Schools this fall, down from roughly 14,000 students last year and more than 20,000 two years ago.

The Washington Times reached out to the Trump administration for comment.

A KFF/New York Times poll of immigrants published Tuesday found that 41% expressed fear that they or a family member might be deported, up from 26% in a 2023 poll.

An additional 30% of immigrants surveyed said they or a relative changed their habits, including not taking a child to school, to avoid immigration problems.

Hispanic immigrants, who tend to have larger families than other demographic groups, have long boosted the head count at U.S. public schools.

In August, the Pew Research Center estimated that 1.5 million children under 18 were illegal aliens in 2023, and 4.6 million U.S.-born minors lived with illegal-immigrant parents.

That’s roughly 12% out of an estimated 73.27 million U.S. residents under 18 in 2023, when Pew said illegal immigrants during the Biden administration reached a reported record-high 14 million, a number that conservative groups call well below reality.

“Some migrant families may have voluntarily returned to their country of origin due to conditions not being as favorable here in the U.S. as they were previously,” said Patrick Wolf, a University of Arkansas education reform professor.

Mr. Wolf said this has added to recent enrollment declines in public education. He noted that the number of students participating in school choice programs such as vouchers, tax-credit-funded scholarships and education savings accounts has nearly doubled from 700,000 to 1.3 million over the past three years.  

Administrative bloat

The exodus of Latinos from some urban school districts comes as the end of COVID-19 stimulus funding led hundreds of public schools to trim their budgets and staff over the summer.

The federal government allocated $189.5 billion in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief grants for K-12 campuses to implement public health restrictions and offset learning losses during pandemic-induced campus lockdowns.

Hundreds of schools with dwindling headcounts spent the money on support programs, technology upgrades and additional employees.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration ended the Biden administration’s extension of a deadline to spend this money.

“The expansion of school choice and immigration policies could be adding pressure to the already existing demographic declines,” said Gema Zamarro, a K-12 education market researcher at the University of Arkansas. “I think some public school districts are going to have to face difficult decisions.”

Justin Wing, the chief of staff at Arizona’s Mesa Public Schools, said low birth rates have become a problem for school enrollment numbers.

“Vouchers are likely having some impact on declining enrollments, too,” Mr. Wing said.

Nina Rees, a school choice advocate and former Education Department official in the George W. Bush administration, predicted that declining Latino enrollment will force more school districts to make “tough choices” about hiring.

“The single largest budget item in any district budget is teacher salaries,” Ms. Rees added. “As the number of students attending school is reduced, districts will need to reduce their workforce.”

Budget cuts due to declining Hispanic enrollment could become especially pronounced in the District, where illegal immigration drove up public school enrollment under the Biden administration.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has proposed increasing the budget for public schools in the District by $123 million to $2.8 billion in the coming fiscal year. The system serves more than 101,000 students and spends more per pupil than most cities, despite subpar math and reading scores.

So far, it is unknown how many Latinos enrolled this year.

“D.C. Public Schools does not ask or require that our families inform anyone at their schools about their immigration status,” spokesman Evan Lambert said in an email.

D.C. Auditor Kathy Patterson, a former Democratic member of the D.C. Council, recently warned local lawmakers that the school system routinely exceeded its fast-growing budget from 2005 to 2024.

“Our review of 20 years of budgets and spending shows that D.C. Public Schools spent more than their council-approved budgets in 17 of the 20 years,” Ms. Patterson said in an email.