https://www.fcd-us.org/combatting-uncertainty-by-building-trust/
Since January 2025, 6,200 children have seen the inside of an immigration detention center, at least 79 children have been teargassed or pepper sprayed during ICE operations, and over 200,000 children are estimated to have had a parent detained in immigration detention. While these numbers are shocking, we knew that we would have to document this harm from the perspective of those directly impacted. A 2018 report released by our colleagues at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) on the impact of immigration operations on immigrant families with young children during the first Trump administration served as a warning for what was to come.
This time around, new research revealed the emotional and economic toll of immigration actions on immigrant families with young children and the people who serve them. It proves how policy isn’t some distant process that happens in echo-chambers in Washington, D.C., but seen and felt on the ground by families with young children, pregnant people, and community advocates. Despite the challenges, however, they are persevering and doubling down on their commitment to their families and communities.
This year, leaders of a child care and community-based organization in Texas (to protect our collaborators who provide care, services, and resources on the ground to immigrant families, we will refer to them as ‘our local partners’) found themselves returning again and again to a difficult question: What does community really mean when safety can’t be guaranteed?
One student in our local partner’s adult education and workforce readiness program learned this in the most heartbreaking way.
While pregnant, she was involved in a car accident. First responders urged her to go to the hospital by ambulance, but fear about current immigration policies stopped her. Instead, she went home and called a healthcare provider she trusted, hoping to be seen quickly. The earliest appointment available was weeks away. While waiting to get care, she lost the pregnancy.
No one can know exactly why it happened or whether a different outcome would have been possible. What remains undeniable is the reality she faced in that moment: her fear was stronger than her trust in the systems meant to help her.
This situation raised another thought: What does it mean to build trust in community? We learned from our local partners that it begins by delivering what communities need.
Our local partners told us, “We can provide education to mothers and children. We can teach English and get kids ready for school. We can connect families to healthcare, counseling, legal information, and other critical resources. We can create spaces where people feel seen, valued, and supported.”
Over the last several years, our local partners worked diligently to prepare their center, staff, and community for uncertainty. At times, they felt some of these preparations were excessive, perhaps even overly cautious. Yet, one by one, the measures they put in place “just in case” became necessary, especially in 2025 when we began to see unprecedented attacks on the immigrant community.
Our local partners invited immigration attorneys to conduct Know Your Rights (KYR) workshops, help families prepare important documentation, and guide them through real-life scenarios. They removed identifying information from their website, limited their social media presence, and removed names, titles, and photographs of staff members. Our partner relocated their center, designated authorized representatives, updated their signage, removed targeted words from their mission, and shifted from photographs to illustrations when sharing stories about their programs.
Even their language evolved. They began referring to the families they serve as ‘English language learner families’, and even to ‘families’ only, moving away from labels that could unnecessarily draw attention to the people at the heart of their work.
Each of these decisions was made thoughtfully and with care. Together, they reflected our local partner’s commitment to honoring the privacy, dignity, and well-being of their community.
But there are limits to how much protection any organization can provide. Eventually, students leave the classroom and return to a world that can feel uncertain and unpredictable. And it is in those moments when the true value of knowledge, preparation, and community becomes clear.
While driving home with her children, another student was stopped by immigration agents. But, because she knew her rights, she stayed calm. She remained inside her vehicle, declined to answer questions she was not required to answer, called her husband, put him on speakerphone, and waited.
As she stood her ground, one agent remarked, “Well, looks like we will not be separating families today.”
The comment was chilling.
These stories, however, remind us that the work of community based organizations is about far more than child care, language acquisition, workforce development, or parenting education. It is about helping people build the confidence, knowledge, and support systems they need to navigate a world that can be unpredictable and, at times, frightening.
All of these preparations and interventions had another, less visible impact: they changed what they were seeing in their youngest learners.
Disrupting Fear
In 2017, at the start of the first Trump administration, the stress and uncertainty many parents were carrying often showed up in the classrooms. Caregivers and teachers saw increased separation anxiety, emotional distress, and developmental regression among some of their youngest students. These reports are corroborated by stories from across the country from early care and education providers during that time. Children were responding to the fears and instability they sensed around them, even when they could not fully understand what was happening.
The impacts of immigration operations on young children motivated us at CLASP to conduct a follow-up study to the first documentation of harm project in 2017-2018. This project, spanning interviews and focus groups with early care and education providers and immigrant parents of young children across 7 states in June-December 2025, focused on the impacts of policies and practices that have targeted immigrant communities since January 2025 - especially when it comes to the experiences of children too young to fully grasp or articulate what is happening to them and their loved ones.
We also wanted to learn about the work of early educators and child care providers who have shown up for immigrant families to mitigate those impacts. We believe that documenting what is happening by elevating the voices of directly impacted individuals becomes an instrumental process of accountability and re-humanization. And, both staff at our local partner’s organization and we at CLASP discovered that their preparations were transformative for their students.
Over the past two years, our local partner’s organization has not seen the same patterns of harm emerge at the same scale as they did during the first Trump administration, despite the intensification of attacks on immigrant communities. The challenges facing families have not disappeared, but many parents have been navigating them with more information, confidence, and support than they had before.
They believe the onsite bilingual mental health services, combined with years of KYR sessions, legal education, and family support, have played an important role. When parents have access to resources, trusted information, and emotional support, they are often better equipped to manage stress, especially during emergencies. And, when parents feel more grounded, children do too.
The result has been noticeable. In a time when we expected to see heightened anxiety amongst our partner’s youngest learners, they instead reported that their children felt secure enough to learn, play, and simply be children.
No program can eliminate every risk families face, especially in a policy environment where children are increasingly facing a society where they have fewer rights than their parents. But access to information, language, trusted relationships, and community can profoundly shape how people navigate those moments.
The people served by our local partner know their rights. They know where to find trusted information. They know there is a community ready to help them find resources, share information, and stand beside them.
One of the most powerful lessons they reported from this past year is that navigating hardship in community changes everything. It creates connection where there was isolation. It creates courage where there was fear. It creates belonging where there was uncertainty.
In moments when leadership, institutions, and systems feel absent or out of reach, immigrant communities have done what they have always done: they have shown up for one another. They have shared knowledge. They have organized. They have protected their neighbors. They have built the support networks that help families survive and thrive.
That is the true story behind these moments.
Not fear, but connection.
Not crisis, but community.
Not what happened to our students, but how they faced it together.
And there are ways for everyone to play a part in building these networks.
Be a witness. Use your voice. Take action.
- Share their stories. The families in these stories are not asking for sympathy. They are asking to be seen. Talk to your social networks about the value of caring and protecting all children and families, regardless of their background.
- Engage with and support the organizations offering KYR trainings (CLASP, ILRC), helping families create preparation plans in case a parent is detained or deported, and creating pathways to education, childcare, workforce opportunities, and economic mobility.
- Emphasize the importance of emotional well-being and community support. Share resources that help immigrants and others focus on their mental health, like this love letter to immigrant parents.
- Let local leaders know these issues matter. Support actions that limit data sharing for the purposes of immigration enforcement, limit local cooperation with federal immigration authorities, and ban private detention facilities in your locality.
- Stay informed. Sign up for the Children Thrive Action Network’s newsletter which sends out policy updates straight to your inbox.
More recommendations for federal and state policymakers, philanthropy, and early care providers are available in CLASP’s reports documenting the impact of immigration policies on young children and early care and education providers.
Community is built when people see one another’s humanity and show up for one another. Thank you for showing up.