(CALIFORNIA) President Trump’s stepped-up immigration enforcement is hitting an already thin child care workforce, with a new report finding 39,000 fewer immigrants working in child care since January 2025 and warning that the drop is pushing parents out of jobs, too.
The analysis, published December 10, 2025 by New America, links the shift to rising ICE arrests and worksite actions that have raised fear among immigrant staff, including people who are legally in the United States 🇺🇸. New America also estimates 79,000 fewer U.S.-born mothers of children under 6 are working because child care is harder to secure as arrests increase. Immigrants make up 30.5% of the child care workforce, so even small changes can ripple fast.
How the enforcement shift affects daily child care operations
Providers and families across California and beyond say the pressure is showing up in day-to-day choices that used to be routine: whether a teacher will drive to work, whether a center will take children on a walk, whether a parent will hand over a toddler at drop-off and trust that nothing will happen before pickup.
New America’s report describes a sector where many staff already earn low wages and often lack paid leave, leaving little room to absorb sudden legal shocks or long gaps in staffing. The report’s core point is blunt:
When immigration enforcement rises, child care staffing falls — and when staffing falls, parents, especially mothers, cut hours or quit jobs.
Those fears have sharpened since January 2025, when schools and child care centers that had long been treated as places ICE would avoid lost that clear protection, according to New America. Agents are now urged to use “common sense,” a phrase that has left many families and staff unsure what to expect at a classroom door or in a parking lot.
Trust is central to child care: parents hand over children who cannot explain what happened if a situation turns chaotic. Directors say it is hard to recruit new workers into a job that already pays modestly when candidates worry that an ordinary commute could turn into a life-changing encounter.
California: proximity of national enforcement to everyday life
In California, where child care supports a large immigrant population and a workforce stretched by high living costs, providers say the “Trump immigration raids” they hear about on the news can feel close even when agents are not at their building.
Staff questions now often include:
- Whether a center will share information with officers
- How management would respond if agents arrive
- Whether it’s safer to switch to private nanny work or leave the field entirely
Parents describe constant contingency planning: if a classroom closes for lack of staff, a mother’s shift may be the one cut — not because an employer wants to punish her, but because there is no other option.
Examples from other cities illustrating rapid change in routines
The New America report points to examples outside California to show how quickly fear can change normal routines in early education:
- At CentroNía, a bilingual preschool in Washington, D.C., leaders:
- Stopped field trips to parks and libraries
- Canceled an October 2025 Hispanic Heritage Month parade
- Rehearsed ICE response protocols after agents began stopping legally present staff in Latino neighborhoods
Those are not symbolic moves; they reshape what children learn and how families connect with a program. Parades and trips are often the moments when parents feel welcomed and children feel proud of language and culture.
- In October 2025, an ICE arrest of a teacher inside a Spanish immersion preschool in Chicago sent shock waves through providers. Even though the incident occurred far from California, stories travel fast through WhatsApp groups, staff meetings, and parent chats. The common takeaway: if it can happen there, it can happen here.
The result can be “silent attrition” — experienced teachers leaving quietly and programs losing people who train newcomers and keep classrooms stable. Child care already has high turnover; enforcement adds another push factor, making replacements hard to find.
Policy changes reducing the legal workforce pipeline
Trump’s immigration policy changes are also cutting the pipeline of legally authorized workers through the rollback of Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
Key details:
- TPS is a humanitarian program that gives people from certain countries permission to live and work in the U.S. for a set period when conditions at home are unsafe.
- New America said the administration ended TPS for groups like 300,000 Venezuelan immigrants in November 2025, stripping legal work status from many people and forcing job losses in sectors that rely on them, including child care.
For many families, TPS holders are not abstract policy categories; they are the teacher who knows a child’s allergies, the aide who speaks to grandparents in Spanish, and the person who stays late when a parent’s bus runs behind.
The federal government’s plain-language overview of TPS, including which countries are currently designated and what work permission can come with the status, is posted at USCIS-TPS-page.
New America argues that when TPS ends for a large group, the immediate harm extends beyond the workers who lose lawful status to families who lose slots and employers who cannot staff classrooms. Child care centers cannot legally schedule a teacher without proper work authorization, so the loss can be sudden: a classroom that was full on Friday may be short-staffed on Monday.
Broader labor and economic impacts
The child care workforce strain sits within a wider set of labor hits economists and labor advocates say could worsen if deportations rise.
Notable analysis:
- Economic Policy Institute analysis by Ben Zipperer, released December 15, 2025, projected that under one million annual deportations:
- Direct care fields could lose up to 400,000 jobs
- This includes 274,000 immigrant positions and 120,000 U.S.-born positions
Although that estimate covers other care work such as home health aides, the warning echoes child care directors’ concerns: the care economy is linked, and when one part breaks, families scramble everywhere. For example, if a grandmother loses her home health aide, a parent may cut hours to help, then need child care at different times.
Public response and local consequences
California has seen public pushback as enforcement actions touched daily life. The source material notes protests in Pasadena on August 28, 2025, tied to raids and broader disruptions to immigrant workers.
While those protests were not limited to child care, providers say the mood matters:
- When families see arrests in their community, they may stop attending school events
- Families may avoid signing forms or pull children from programs that require regular travel
- Some staff avoid driving, worried that a traffic stop could trigger immigration questions
That can be enough to make a teacher who used to commute 30 minutes decide the job is no longer worth the risk.
Human and economic costs beyond statistics
The human impact is hard to capture in a single statistic because the source material does not name individual teachers or parents who left, but the pattern is visible in the numbers and in steps centers report taking to protect staff and children.
According to analysis by VisaVerge.com, combining New America and Economic Policy Institute findings shows a squeeze that spreads from enforcement policy into family budgets and women’s jobs. When 79,000 mothers are estimated to be out of work because child care is less available, the consequences touch:
- Wages and household income
- Rent affordability and housing stability
- Access to employer-provided health insurance
For employers, the effects include missed shifts and higher turnover. Supporters of tougher enforcement argue that immigration rules should be enforced and that workplaces should not rely on unauthorized labor. The New America report stresses, however, that many people now afraid are legally present, including TPS holders and other authorized workers.
That distinction matters in child care because centers tend to follow the law closely: they run background checks, keep licensing files, and answer to state regulators. Yet even legal workers can feel exposed when enforcement expands and long-standing “off-limits” norms fade. In practice, directors say, a climate of fear can function like a staffing cut even before any arrest happens at a specific site.
Takeaway
Reduced immigrant staffing from enforcement and policy rollbacks can quickly translate into fewer child care slots, fewer parents (especially mothers) working, and broader economic fallout for families and employers.
In California, where costs are already high, the loss of a job can quickly mean missed rent or forced moves. Providers can adjust lesson plans, combine classes, or call in substitutes for a day, but they cannot replace skilled teachers at scale if immigration policy continues to push people out of the field.
New America’s December 2025 report links intensified immigration enforcement and policy rollbacks to a loss of roughly 39,000 immigrant child care workers since January 2025. The disruption has reduced available slots, prompting an estimated 79,000 U.S.-born mothers to cut hours or leave jobs. The end of TPS for large groups, including Venezuelans, and increased ICE activity have raised fear, curtailed programming, and created staffing gaps that ripple through family budgets and the broader care economy.
