Immigration raid against California farmworkers found to reduce school attendance

San Francisco Chronicle​

5 hours ago

An increase in recent immigration enforcement in California's Central Valley appears to have caused a drop in school attendance, a Stanford University researcher has found.
After a January immigration raid that targeted Kern County farmworkers, local school districts saw a 22% increase in daily student absences compared with the monthly pattern within the past two years, Stanford education professor Thomas Dee wrote in a newly published paper.
The Jan. 7 to 9 raid, called Operation Return to Sender, was conducted by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol's El Centro sector days before President Donald Trump's inauguration. The first major workplace immigration raid in California since Trump's presidential election victory, it resulted in at least 78 arrests, according to the El Centro sector of the U.S. Border Patrol.
Border patrol agents said they were carrying out 'a 'targeted enforcement' action focused on those with criminal histories but United Farm Workers, a California-based union, said many people arrested had no criminal records, including a lawful permanent resident who was only released when she showed the agent a picture of her green card.
A U.S. district judge later barred U.S. Border Patrol agents from using practices deployed in that raid. The ruling, part of a class action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of farmworkers, stated border patrol agents in the raid 'more likely than not' stopped and detained people without reasonable suspicion to do so.
The raid almost immediately fueled widespread fear among undocumented immigrant families, who said they were afraid to send their kids to school or leave home in case they were arrested.
Since then, ICE expanded enforcement activity in Southern California's agricultural regions, including Tulare, Fresno and Ventura counties, the Los Angeles Times reported, as part of Trump's campaign promise for mass deportations of the country's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.
The Stanford paper is the first research published about whether the Bakersfield raid impacted school attendance.
Using three years of daily data on student absences in five Central Valley school districts where the raids took place, Dee measured whether student absences in January and February, after the raid occurred, differed from what would be expected based on seasonal trends in previous years.
He also accounted for events and holidays that would have impacted attendance for other reasons, such as the first Monday in February, which was an annual public holiday in Mexico celebrating Constitution Day, and the Feb. 3 Day Without Immigrants protest, which saw at least 700 Kern County high schoolers walking out of class to protest Trump's policies.
The results indicated a sharp increase of more than 20% in student absences in January and February, with absenteeism increasing particularly among younger students.
'Using unique data from school districts in California's Central Valley, this study presents leading evidence that the recent surge in interior immigration enforcement significantly increased student absences from school,' the report stated. 'The increased absences can also be understood as a leading indicator of broad and developmentally harmful stress these raids create for students and their families.'
The harm to student learning is substantial, Dee said, compounding the post-pandemic spike in chronic absenteeism, making it hard for teachers to pace instruction when some students miss school, and potentially causing anxiety disorders in children and compromising long-term academic success.
California is one of the few states that base state funding for schools on average daily attendance. Dee said that the raid-induced increases in absences will reduce state funds available to affected districts.
Michele Copher, superintendent of schools in Fresno County, which has been impacted by immigration raids against farmworkers, said that in the late winter, Fresno County school districts reported a drop in attendance that coincided with reported Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in the area.
'Attendance has since stabilized, and districts have worked hard to help families feel confident sending their children to school,' Copher said.