Although attending and graduating from an American university is a great milestone for many undocumented students, it doesn’t eliminate their immigration status or fear for their livelihoods.
Mitzli Pavia Garcia, a 2024 San Diego State University graduate, remembers being 12 years old and running out of food and water on a three-day trek through the Arizona desert. Garcia and eight others attempted to cross the Mexico border into the United States for a month, turning back due to extreme weather or arrests.
Garcia and the group broke open cactuses to sip and prayed when they found a farm, taking gulps of water from the same trough as the cattle.
Today, Garcia is a 28-year-old undocumented resident of the United States.
Born in Cuautla, Mexico, Garcia was 6 years old when they first entered the United States. According to Garcia, their mom wanted to give them a life better than her own. Garcia’s mother never finished middle school, and their father did not complete elementary school.
Garcia said they always navigate life aware of their immigration status. Struggling to keep up in high school while thinking about higher education, they recalled how colleges and financial aid programs required Social Security numbers to apply. And they worried about the record number of deportations during the Obama administration, which instilled fear in the undocumented community.
“When I was in school, I knew that I was safe from immigration, so I loved learning,” Garcia said. “I was top of the class for some things, and it was really hard for me to push myself to do the best when I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to access higher education.”
Garcia applied for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, hoping to receive security from the government as a student. Because Garcia and their mom had returned to Mexico to care for their grandmother before high school, their application was instantly rejected.
The lack of security from DACA didn’t deter Garcia.
Garcia was accepted to San Diego State University in 2022 after attending San Diego Mesa and San Diego Miramar community colleges.
Garcia said undocumented students severely lacked support at SDSU.
“We have an undocumented resource center at San Diego State. It’s a great thing, but it’s the bare minimum,” Garcia said. “It’s a great space for undocumented students to go and sit, but it was hard for me to ask them for help because they don’t even have the resources.”
Garcia found more support from Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán, or MEChA, on campus. According to its website, MEChA is a national organization with local chapters that focus on Chicanx issues, including U.S. immigration and Central and South American political struggles.
Garcia felt pressure even after graduating from a four-year university. They have been trying to achieve American citizenship, but have grown frustrated and worried about the lengthy process.
“A lot of us still can’t legally work in the spaces that we worked so hard for four years because again, they require Social Security or legal status,” they said. “I submitted legal paperwork in 2020, then Covid hit. At the time, it was a five-year wait for the legal route that I was pursuing. It is now doubled, and now it’s a 10-year-plus wait. Trump keeps telling us, ‘Hey, do it the legal way,’ and then the legal way takes a quarter of your life.”
Based on the legal proceedings he has completed, Garcia said, “I am not supposed to be deportable.” But they know, ICE “can hold me in a detention center if they want to, because they’re doing that now. They’re arresting citizens just because they’re brown, putting them in detention centers, and then not believing that they’re citizens, even with the paperwork. I don’t even feel safe to travel outside of San Diego, and when everything started happening a few weeks ago, I was afraid to leave my house.”
Garcia finds strength in their undocumented identity, however.
“We’ve feared this already before,” they said. “While they may be able to instill this fear in my community, I’m not going to let them instill that fear in me. I’m still here, I still made it out. We can still achieve our dreams.”
Absentee rates in five districts cumulatively increased 22% after immigration raids in the Central Valley earlier this year.
Raids increase stress levels in school communities, making it difficult for students to learn.
Fewer students in class means less funding for schools, which rely on average daily attendance to pay for general expenses.
Immigration raids in California’s Central Valley earlier this year caused enough fear to keep nearly a quarter of the students in five districts home from school, according to a report released Monday by Stanford University.
The study evaluated daily student attendance in the districts over three school years and found a 22% increase in absences after immigration raids in the region in January and February.
Empty seats in classrooms impact student education and reduce districts’ funding for general expenses, which are tied to average daily attendance. The financial losses are especially difficult now because districts are already grappling with lost funding due to declining enrollment.
“The first and most obvious interpretation of the results is that students are missing school, and that means lost learning opportunities,” said Thomas Dee, a Stanford professor of education and author of the report. “But I think these results are a harbinger of much more than that. I mean, they’re really a leading indicator of the distress that these raids place on families and children.”
The raids in the Central Valley began in January as part of “Operation Return to Sender.” U.S. Border Patrol agents targeted immigrants at gas stations and restaurants, and pulled over farmworkers traveling to work, observers reported.
All five districts analyzed in the study — Bakersfield City School District, Southern Kern Unified, Tehachapi Unified, Kerman Unified and Fresno Unified — are in or near agricultural regions that were impacted by the operation. The districts closest to the raids had the highest absentee rates, Dee said.
It is unclear how many people were actually arrested during the four-day operation. Border Patrol officials have claimed 78 people were arrested, while observers say it was closer to 1,000, according to the study.
Raids keep kids out of school
But whatever the number of arrests, fewer students in these districts attended school in the wake of the raids. The results of the study also suggest that absentee rates in California schools could continue to increase if the raids persist.
In the Stanford report, Dee cited studies, including one he co-wrote, that found that prior instances of immigration enforcement have negatively impacted grade retention, high school completion, test scores and anxiety disorders. The climate of fear and mistrust caused by the raids impacts children even if their parents are not undocumented, according to the report.
An estimated 1 in 10, or 1 million, children in California have at least one undocumented parent. And while most of the children of undocumented parents in the United States are U.S. citizens, approximately 133,000 California children are undocumented themselves, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Of the more than 112,500 students attending the five districts studied, almost 82,000 are Hispanic, according to state data.
Not all districts impacted by the raids were studied, however. Big Local News, a journalism lab at Stanford University, approached multiple districts to request data. These five districts responded, according to Dee.
The school’s youngest students were the most likely to miss school because of immigration raids, according to the report. That trend is expected to continue because younger children are more likely to have undocumented parents, Dee said. Parents are also more protective of their younger children, he said.
“I think it just makes sense that if you’re concerned about family separation, it is a uniquely sharp concern if your kids are particularly young,” Dee said.
Family separation has been a constant fear since the Central Valley raids, agrees Mario Gonzalez, executive director of the Education & Leadership Foundation. The nonprofit provides immigration support and educational services to the community, including tutoring in 30 Fresno Unified schools.
Gonzalez said the foundation saw a decrease in the number of families participating in onsite services, such as legal consultations, beginning with the first reported immigration raids in Bakersfield in January, and a decrease in school attendance.
High school students told the foundation staff that their friends were afraid to come to school.
Fresno Unified attendance dipped
Attendance in Fresno Unified — the state’s third-largest district — dropped immediately after the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Donald Trump, said Noreida Perez, the district’s attendance and social emotional manager. Based on internal calculations, a decline in average daily attendance continued until March, with attendance rates decreasing by more than 4% in one week in February, compared to the same time in 2024.
Families reported keeping their children home because they were afraid that immigration enforcement officials would be allowed on campus or that parents would be unsafe traveling to and from school for drop-off and pickup, Perez said.
“There was a lot of fear during that time,” she said. “There’s a lot of stress that’s associated with the threats of something like this happening.”
Families concerned about sending their children to school have reached out to the Education & Leadership Foundation to ask how their kids can continue to receive services, including bilingual instruction, reading and math intervention, and mentoring. Some wanted to learn about the district’s virtual academy, which Superintendent Misty Her had promoted during her home visits to address increased absenteeism.
The fear of immigration operations has also impacted the students who attend classes.
“If a student is worried about this happening to their parents or to somebody that they love, it makes it really hard to focus on learning or to be present with their peers or with their teacher,” said Perez, who is also a licensed clinical social worker. “If it feels like I might not be safe at school, or I don’t know what I’m going to come home to, that supersedes my ability to really focus and learn.”
Compensating schools
Ongoing declining enrollment is causing financial pressure in many school districts. In the 2024-25 school year, enrollment statewide declined by 31,469 students, or 0.54%, compared to last year. The previous school year, attendance declined by 0.25%, according to state data. Immigration raids could make a bad situation worse.
The issue is so concerning for school districts that the California Legislature is considering a bill that would allow the state to fund districts for the loss of daily state attendance revenue if parents keep their children at home out of fear of a federal immigration raid in their neighborhood.
Assembly Bill 1348, authored by Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, D-Delano, would allow the state to credit a district with the attendance numbers and funding they would have received had there not been immigration enforcement activity in their community.
To receive compensation, a district will have to provide data attributing a decline in attendance in a school — of at least 10% — to fear of federal immigration enforcement. The district must also provide remote learning as an option to families who keep their children home for this reason.
“When attendance drops, funding disappears, and when funding disappears, all students suffer — regardless of immigration status,” said Bains in a statement after the Assembly passed the bill 62-13 on June 2.
John Fensterwald and Emma Gallegos contributed to this report.
Teacher Laura Brown, second from right, speaks at a rally for Miguel Angel Lopez, alongside teacher Betsy Wilson, Lopez’s wife Rosa Lopez, and son-in-law Jimmy Silva.
Courtesy of Becca Esquivel Makris
Top Takeaways
Some schools across California report that parents — and sometimes students — have been detained by immigration officials.
Teachers and other school staff are stepping up to help families get the resources they need.
When a parent is detained or deported, students may become eligible for homeless services.
The day before final exams started at Granada High School in Livermore, special education teacher Laura Brown got word that a student’s father had been detained by immigration officers.
Brown didn’t hesitate. She immediately called the student’s mother, Rosa Lopez, and went over to her house that night. She had known the family for 12 years, ever since the oldest son had been her student. The youngest, who just finished his sophomore year in high school, stops by her classroom regularly just to say hi.
Together, Brown and Lopez wrote a message calling for help. Within hours, they had contacted their local congressional representative, mayor and local activists. Another teacher, Betsy Wilson, helped organize a rally to protest Miguel Angel Lopez’s detention. Days later, he was deported to Tijuana. As his wife travels to Mexico to help him, Brown and Wilson are still trying to support the family.
“That’s the call of a teacher,” Brown said. “Your students need you and that’s it.”
She would do the same for any student, she said.
“Right now, if a student has anyone in their family that has an unknown legal status, it would be really hard for us to expect that their brains are going to be capable of learning and taking in content when they’re in such a traumatized and fearful state,” Brown said.
SUPPORTING IMMIGRANT FAMILIES
As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids ramp up across California, so have reports of students grappling with trauma, upheaval and fear after family members — and sometimes students themselves — are detained.
A fourth grader in Torrance and his father were sent to a detention center in Texas after an appointment with federal immigration officials on May 29. They were later deported to Honduras.
In San Francisco, at least 15 people, including four children, were detained by ICE at scheduled immigration check-ins on June 4, according to advocates. In May, a first grader in the district was deported with his mom to Nicaragua after attending an immigration appointment as part of their application for a visa.
“There was no chance for them to return home to get any of their belongings or to say goodbye,” said Maggie Furey, a social worker in the district. “The first grader left school Friday not knowing that they were never going to see their friends, teacher or community again.”
Furey said the child’s deportation hit his classmates and teachers hard.
“A lot of the adults were extremely distraught, and we saw heightened anxiety in our community because we have other families that have immigration appointments coming up and were really fearful,” Furey said. “The kids really missed the student, and you’re having to have really big conversations on a first-grade level with kids.”
She said the child’s teacher set up an international video call so his classmates could say goodbye.
We’ve had to call upon our therapists, our social workers at our school site to be able to have those heart-to-heart conversations with their students when they’re feeling anxious, stressed or very worried
The effects on students extend beyond the communities where the most publicized raids have occurred. Efrain Tovar, who teaches English language development to English learners and immigrant students at Abraham Lincoln Middle School in Selma, in the Central Valley, said he’s seen an increase in fear and uncertainty.
“We’ve had to call upon our therapists, our social workers at our school site to be able to have those heart-to-heart conversations with their students when they’re feeling anxious, stressed or very worried,” said Tovar. “It’s a reality that our students are facing, and students cannot learn when these types of events flare up in the classroom.”
He said, in addition, many immigrant students are unsure of where they will be next school year, which makes it hard for them to plan for high school or the future.
“There’s this feeling among the newcomers that ‘we don’t know if we’ll be back next year.’ As we end the school year, there’s a lot of what-ifs,” Tovar said.
Jesús Vedoya Rentería, who teaches English at Hanford West High School in the Central Valley, said in response to the fear among their peers, some of his students have decided to pass out “know-your-rights” cards outside Mexican markets or at the swap meet on weekends. He said it makes them feel more empowered.
“They were concerned a lot of raids were going on and said we owed it to our immigrant population to make sure they’re informed,” Vedoya Rentería said.
School staff are anxious to know what they can do to help students and families, said Ana Mendoza, director of education equity and senior staff attorney at ACLU of Southern California. She said the organization has worked with several school districts to provide presentations on students’ and families’ rights regarding immigration enforcement and training for school employees.
“Schools have the obligation to ensure families know that students have the right to attend California public schools,” Mendoza said.
Federal law gives all children the right to a free public education, regardless of immigration status. Under California law, school districts must notify parents and guardians of that right. The state attorney general recommends that schools also work with parents to create a plan for who should have custody of the child if parents are detained, and that school staff connect families with legal help or other resources.
A family separated
When Granada High School teachers stepped up to help Rosa Lopez, the mother in Livermore, it meant a lot, she said.
“If it wasn’t for them, I would [have] probably be[en] home with my arms crossed just waiting for Miguel or the lawyer to call,” said Lopez. “That really motivated me and hyped me up, because I was like, ‘OK, I got this and I know I can do this, and we’re going to bring Miguel home.’”
Lopez said her husband’s detention and deportation have deeply affected her kids, who are 24, 23 and 17 years old.
“We’ve never been apart from each other,” she said. “He is the one always making sure we’re OK.”
Miguel Angel Lopez (center) with his daughter Stephanie, wife Rosa and sons Julian and Angel. Credit: Courtesy of the family Courtesy of Rosa Lopez
Her youngest son, Julian, had to take final exams the day after his dad’s detention, but it helped that his teachers knew what he was going through, she said.
“My oldest son, he doesn’t know how to express his emotion, but I can see the sadness in his face, and he said he feels like the house isn’t home because his dad’s not here,” she said.
The couple’s granddaughter, who is 3 years old, doesn’t understand why her grandfather isn’t home. “She grabs his picture and says, ‘I want to go with Papa,’” her name for her grandpa, Lopez said.
Lopez, who is a U.S. citizen, said she applied for her husband to become a permanent legal resident after getting married in 2001, but the government initially denied the application, and the couple has been battling that decision in court for years. She said her husband was originally taken to a detention center in McFarland, but early Saturday morning, he called her from Tijuana and told her he was left there by immigration authorities without his Mexican passport or his California driver’s license.
“I lost it when he told me,” Lopez said. “This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go.”
She immediately booked a flight to Mexico to bring her husband clothes and his birth certificate and help him complete paperwork to get a new Mexican passport. She plans to continue to fight the deportation in court.
Students may be eligible for McKinney-Vento resources
Mendoza, from the ACLU, said after a family member is detained, school staff should check if a student’s housing situation has changed, which could then make them eligible for services for homeless students, under the federal law known as the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
If a student’s parent or guardian is detained, they may have to live with a new family member, for example, or the loss of income of one parent may require a student’s family to move to a new home. In that case, students have the right to stay in the same school even if they have moved farther away, and they may need help with transportation to get to school, Mendoza said.
“Stability is really important,” said Mendoza. “But if they [school staff] don’t inquire about why an address has changed, they might miss that it’s a housing instability that would then trigger McKinney-Vento.”
School personnel at a school district in Ontario, outside of Los Angeles, said they were recently approached by a grandmother who was caring for her grandchildren and needed food and clothing for them. Only after inquiring about their living situation did the district learn that the children’s parents had been detained by ICE. Their particular situation qualified them for homeless assistance resources.
“I think there’s this hesitancy to talk about ‘what does this mean for our immigrant students?’ But I think it’s even more important now because we never know who students will feel comfortable sharing that information with,” said Karen Rice, a senior program manager at student-advocacy organization SchoolHouse Connection.
So many of our members want to know, what do I do in the event that ICE does get past the office and into the classrooms?
Yajaira Cuapio
At Coachella Valley Unified School District, an uptick in fear of immigration enforcement is contributing to homelessness among families. Karina Vega, a district support counselor, said immigration-related changes in students’ lives vary widely. Some parents have had to temporarily leave the country as part of the residency process; others have a deported parent, leaving the remaining parent struggling to make ends meet on their own; others are constantly moving to stay off the radar of immigration officials.
The information from the state attorney general about how to help immigrant students and families is not always getting to teachers, said Yajaira Cuapio, a social worker with the San Francisco Unified School District. She said the teachers union, United Educators of San Francisco, is asking the district to include training on sanctuary policies in the teachers’ contract.
“So many of our members want to know, what do I do in the event that ICE does get past the office and into the classrooms?” Cuapio said. “What are our rights? What do I do as an educator?”
Chino Valley Unified school board President Sonja Shaw speaks at the parental rights rally in Simi Valley.
Credit: Courtesy of Rebecca Holz / California Policy Center
The Chino Valley Unified School District school board voted Thursday to adopt a revamped version of its transgender notification policy, which LGBTQ+ advocates fear would help the district withstand court battles and propel the case to the United States Supreme Court — a possibility previously expressed by Board President Sonja Shaw.
Unlike the original policy adopted in July, the new policy does not use words like “gender” or “bathroom.” Instead, it broadly states that school officials should notify parents in writing, within three days, if their child requests to change any information in their official or unofficial record. It also cites previous decisions in favor of parental rights.
“These policies are rooted in distrust for our schools. And so you know, they’re breaking down these relationships that are essential to schools being successful,” said Kristi Hirst, a district alumna, teacher and parent, who also serves as the the chief operating officer of Our Schools USA — a national organization focused on protecting public education.
“What is unclear is what ‘unofficial records’ are, and my hunch is, that’s where…. targeting of transgender students is going to really be seen,” Hirst said.
Thursday’s board meeting was packed with both supporters of the new policy, as well as members of the district’s teacher’s union, who wore matching red shirts in solidarity.
Supporters of the policy also spoke during public comment on Thursday with one of them claiming that the “initiative” would put an end to puberty blockers supposedly being administered and prevent “boys entering into women’s/girls’ spaces.”
One speaker told the board, “Safe teachers don’t lie to parents. Safe teachers don’t keep secrets from parents. Thank you for protecting our kids against unsafe teachers.”
“Parents love and know kids best. Calling a parent abusive for wanting to get their child the proper psychological help is completely ignorant.”
Both the previous and new versions of the policy stress the district’s commitment to foster trust between schools and parents. They also share the same three statements of intent: to maintain trust between schools and families, involve parents in decisions about their child’s mental health and increase communication and build positive relationships that can positively impact student outcomes.
The older version of the policy which passed in July would have required school staff to notify parents within three days in writing if their child asks to use a name or pronoun that is different from what is on their official student record. Parents would also have to be informed if their child wishes to access sex-segregated spaces that do not align with their biological sex or request to change anything on their official or unofficial record.
Under the new policy, however, parents would only be notified of the following:
Requests to change official or unofficial records.
Extracurricular or co curricular activities their student is involved in.
Physical injuries at school or during school sponsored activities.
Both policies share the same guidelines in cases where a student experiences bullying, is involved in a physical altercation or has suicidal intentions.
“The updated policy strikes a balance between two important principles—prioritizing students’ well-being and upholding parents’ rights—and ensures that parents are kept informed every step of the way,” Shaw said in a Liberty Justice Center statement released Friday.
Chino community members have repeatedly claimed that such policies in Chino Valley Unified and beyond are detrimental to the mental and physical well-being of LGBTQ+ students.
A crisis hotline launched on Aug. 5 by Rainbow Youth Project USA and Our Schools USA has received nearly 650 calls since Chino Valley Unified passed its transgender notification policy, the Los Angeles Blade reported.
“All the students who have come to speak about this, they are hearing that rhetoric,” Hirst said, adding that the board’s decisions have fostered a climate of “mistreatment.”
“That is 100% going to filter down to schools, and it is. Your leaders, when they breathe that hate into the air, it spreads, and you can feel it.”
Hirst added that her daughter, who attends district schools, has also noticed an increase in physical fights and bullying against LGBTQ+ students.
Before the policy’s passage, “no one cared,” she said.
“There’s no teacher who has these nefarious intentions to kids and hides things from their parents. Nobody’s doing that. . . They [teachers] are constantly working to get parent volunteers and parent involvement.”
The lead up
In November 2022, voters elected a conservative majority to the Chino Valley Unified School District school board, with three members connected to Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, led by Pastor Jack Hibbs.
The board voted in June to ban pride flags and in November passed a policy to have a panel remove books it believes to be “sexually inappropriate.” In July, Chino Valley Unified became the first district to pass a policy that would require school officials to notify parents if their child shows any sign of being transgender, which has since spread to other districts, and originated from Assembly Bill 1314, proposed by Assemblymember Bill Essayli, R-Riverside, which was denied a hearing at the state level.
The district’s board meetings have also drawn the attention of conservative groups such as Leave Our Kids Alone, a group that travels to various school board meetings to advocate “age appropriate curriculum” and to oppose curriculum and practices they view as indoctrination.
State Superintendent Tony Thurmond attended the board’s July meeting to speak out against the transgender notification policy during public comment but was kicked out of the meeting.
During the closed session of Thursday’s meeting, members of the board met with two law firms: The Liberty Justice Center and Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud, and Romo (AALRR) about the ongoing litigation.
Last September, the board hired The Liberty Justice Center — known for the landmark U.S. Supreme Court labor case Janus v. AFSCME — to provide them with pro-bono legal representation.
An argument for teacher support
For teachers in the Chino Valley Unified School district, discussions about the transgender notification policy are inseparable from a push for better wages.
If the board has hundreds of thousands to spend on legal fees, it has the money to bargain in good faith and provide a Cost of Living Adjustment, the teachers union has argued. And on Feb. 22, the union declared an impasse.
“We can’t hire teachers; we can’t attract them. We have all these openings. We have parents coming to our board meetings complaining about violence in our schools that’s not being addressed. We have parents coming in complaining about rampant racism in our schools that’s not being addressed, bullying that’s not being addressed,” Hirst said.
“And so we have real issues that need to be addressed, and instead, all of our resources and time and energy is going on these culture war issues that don’t improve our schools.”
In November, public records published by the Sacramento Bee and acquired by Our Schools USA found the district tripled their legal fees to AALRR since July, when they passed the first iteration of their transgender notification policy. In July, the Chino Valley Unified School District paid AALRR $30,903.
Those fees soared, amounting to $104,867 in August and $54,988 in September, in addition to the $307,000 spent during the 2022-23 academic year.
“We’d rather be home tonight grading papers, planning lessons, maybe trying to have some time with our families,” said Steven Frazer, the organizing committee chairperson for Associated Chino Teachers. “But it’s important that we’re here. It’s important that the board understands that we’re united in standing up for our rights, for student rights and just for what’s right.”
Two weeks ago, hundreds of district teachers rallied for the cause — and made their voices heard again before Thursday’s meeting.
“I know this community really well. I love this community. And I’m watching the most beloved teachers just really struggling and wanting to leave,” Hirst said.
“There’s nothing in my kids’ educational experience that is as impactful as the quality of the teachers they have access to. And I’m really concerned that we’re not going to attract the best anymore.”
This story has been updated to include a statement from Chino Valley Unified School Board President Sonja Shaw.
Students rely on an array of services in special education classes.
Christopher Futcher/iStock
Top Takeaways
A proposal for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to oversee special education draws criticism.
Trump has promised stable levels of funding for special education, but critics worry about his plan to reduce oversight of those funds.
Advocates worry that a “brain drain” from the U.S. Department of Education could weaken the quality of education for students with disabilities nationally.
Javier Arroyo has been impressed with the education his 9-year-old son with a disability receives.
“This country provides so many resources,” said Arroyo, whose son attends Kern County’s Richland School District.
Arroyo’s wife has family in Mexico, but he believes his son, who has Down syndrome, is better served here than he’d be in most other countries because of the services he receives: “We don’t have resources like this in Mexico.”
But because of changes happening at the federal level, he said, it’s hard to tell what education will look like for his son.
Arroyo has heard that federal cuts are already affecting disabled students and that President Donald Trump has proposed moving oversight of special education from the U.S. Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services. Local school leaders have told him that they also don’t have much clarity about how special education is likely to change.
“It’s confusing right now, what’s going on federally,” Arroyo said. “Not even experts really know.”
Arroyo isn’t alone. There are 850,000 students with disabilities in California. These students, their parents and educators in California say they have a lot of questions — and serious concerns — about federal proposals that could transform the way schools deliver education to students with disabilities.
Saran Tugsjargal, 18, is a high school senior and one of the first students to sit on the state’s Advisory Council for Special Education. She said her own initial response to moving special education outside the U.S. Department of Education was confusion: “I was like, ‘What the flip?’”
Tugsjargal attends Alameda Community Learning Center, a charter school in the Bay Area, and she often hears from students like her who have disabilities. Many have told her they are confused and fearful about how the proposed federal changes could affect their education.
“A lot of my peers at my school were very scared. They were terrified,” she said. “They were just like, ‘What’s going to happen to me? What’s going to happen to my parents, who need to fight for those accommodation services? What’s going to happen to a lot of us?’ There’s a lot of fear.”
Education for students with disabilities has historically received broad support across party lines. The federal government provides approximately 8% of special education funding. That’s a critical amount, though it falls well short of the original 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) promise that the federal government would pay 40% of special education funding.
Because of that bipartisan support, most experts believe that federal funding for special education isn’t at serious risk right now. However, they say that other changes proposed by this administration could adversely impact students with disabilities.
Reg Leichty, the founder of Foresight Law + Policy, an education law firm in Washington, is one of those experts.
“I said often the last few weeks, ‘Don’t over or underreact,’” Leichty said. “But we have a job to do making sure that the system continues to work for kids.”
In his budget, Trump proposes keeping federal funding for special education at current levels — $15.5 billion nationally — while consolidating funding streams, which would reduce oversight and give more control to local governance.
His proposal to dismantle the Department of Education requires moving oversight of special education to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which previously oversaw the education of students with disabilities.
“IDEA funding for our children with disabilities and special needs was in place before there was a Department of Education, and it managed to work incredibly well,” U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon told a Fox News host.
In an April 4 letter to the California congressional delegation, California administrators of Special Education Local Plan Areas, or SELPAs, vehemently disagreed, stating that the proposal undermines the rights of students with disabilities and jeopardizes key funding and resources for these students.
Scott Turner, chair of SELPA Administrators of California, wrote that moving oversight of the education of students with disabilities to a health department “reinforces an outdated and ableist, deficit-based model where disabilities are considered as medical conditions to be managed rather than recognizing that students with disabilities are capable learners, each with unique strengths and educational potential.”
Including students with disabilities in the general education classroom to the maximum extent possible is the model that the Department of Education has aimed at over the decades.
Before the passage of the IDEA, students with disabilities were routinely institutionalized or undereducated, if they were offered a public education at all, according to Robyn Linscott, director of education and family policy for The Arc, a national advocacy group for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Moving special education to a health agency “promotes this medical model and continues the othering of students with a disability,” Linscott said.
Arroyo wants to see his 9-year-old included in more general education classes, such as physical education, and activities like field trips. High staffing ratios make this kind of inclusion possible, ensuring the quality of his son’s education. His son is in a class with nine students, three aides and one teacher. He worries federal cuts could have major consequences for his son and others in his class.
“I couldn’t imagine if (the teacher) even lost one aide,” Arroyo said.
The Coalition for Adequate Funding for Special Education has come out in support of a federal bill that would keep the U.S. Department of Education intact and free from any restructuring, according to the organization’s chair, Anthony Rebelo.
“We want to make sure that folks understand students with disabilities are still students, that they don’t just get lumped with disabled people,” said Rebelo, who is also the director of the Trinity County Special Education Local Plan Area.
Joshua Salas, a special education coordinator at a charter school, Alliance Renee and Meyer Luskin Academy in Los Angeles, worries that the quality of education for students with disabilities will be “put on the back burner” and that there won’t be enough federal oversight to make sure schools are serving students with disabilities.
“What I’m worried about are the long-term implications,” said Salas. “I’m wondering about what will get lost in the transition.”
Education attorney Leichty said it’s hard to know what education for students with disabilities would look like under a new department, but he worries about the “brain drain” of experts from the Department of Education who view education as a civil right.
“Over time, could it be made to work? Certainly,” Leichty said. “But I think there’s a major loss of institutional knowledge and expertise when you try to pursue a change like this.”
He said Trump’s executive order to close the Department of Education acknowledges that the Constitution limits the ability of the executive branch to do so without congressional approval.
The federal Department of Education and other federal offices, including the Department of Health and Human Services, have already experienced wide-scale cuts proposed by the “Department of Government Efficiency.”
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) lost half of its staff, including shuttering the San Francisco-based office dedicated to California complaints, which had over 700 pending cases, more than half involving disability rights. A spokesperson for the administration said that it will use mediation and expedited case processing to address disability-related complaints. Those cuts have been challenged in court.
Advocates are concerned that doubling the caseload for existing staff means there will be a federal backlog of complaints, weakening enforcement.
Student advocate Tugsjargal has been telling students with disabilities and their parents to call their legislators and attend town hall meetings and public rallies to protest Trump’s proposals.
“When we talk with each other about our stories, when we speak out, we learn a lot from each other,” she said. “We drive a lot of change.”
Denny Sicairos, 5, at a Bakersfield protest against an extensive Border Patrol operation held last week.
Emma Gallegos/EdSource
Advocates have called upon school leaders to take action to protect immigrants in the wake of an extensive operation by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in Kern County last week.
Immigrant families have been afraid to send their students to school in the wake of the extensive operation, some opting to keep them home.
“Students are scared,” said Belen Carrasco, a middle school teacher at Bakersfield City School District, who reported an increase in student absences in her classroom over the last week. Students have told her that Border Patrol agents knocked on their doors, and in one case, detained a parent. Students are asking Carrasco for information on what they should do if agents approach them.
One resident, Samantha Gil, said that her daughter’s immigrant friends at West High School in Bakersfield are “hidden in their houses. She is very sad for them.”
The fear is so great that community members have been afraid to show up to school sites in rural communities where food is being distributed, according to Ashley De La Rosa, education policy director for the Dolores Huerta Foundation, a Bakersfield-based community advocacy organization.
Advocates are encouraging immigrants to know their legal rights under the U.S. Constitution and to document any encounters with immigration officials. They are encouraging school leaders to get in touch with community groups that can provide this education or pass out cards with information about people’s constitutional rights, as Delano Union School District does. Above all, families are looking for assurance that schools are safe places that will not alert immigration authorities to their immigration status or address.
“The parents are really looking to school districts to take action,” De La Rosa said.
‘There was a lot of terror’
Firsthand accounts show that border patrol agents are broadly targeting immigrant communities, according to Rosa Lopez, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Kern County. She works with the Rapid Response Network of Kern County — a group that offers a hotline for those who are a target of immigration enforcement or who may witness agents in the community.
“What [agents] have done is terrorize communities and profile people who look brown, who look undocumented and who look like farmworkers,” Lopez said.
The Rapid Response Network has also confirmed the presence of Customs and Border Patrol agents at gas stations and restaurants frequented by farmworkers and immigrants, pulling over farmworkers traveling to work, and even a Home Depot parking lot where day laborers look for work, Lopez said.
A video,shared by local NBC affiliate KGET showed a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent detaining a U.S. citizen and threatening to break the windows of his gardening truck, after slashing its tires. He was later released, KGET reported.
Gregory Bovino, chief patrol agent of the El Centro sector in Imperial County on the Mexican border of the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol called this week’s raids Operation Return to Sender. He posted photos on social media, stating that the operation was aimed at protecting communities “from bad people and bad things.” His posts about the operation included hashtags for Bakersfield, as well as Fresno and Sacramento. The agency did not respond to questions from EdSource.
Bakersfield City Councilmember Andrae Gonzales said families he represents in Bakersfield were being “harassed,” “intimidated” and “terrorized” by Border Patrol agents.
“All of last week, I’ve gotten countless calls from people who wondered what to do, what their plan should be; employers who saw their employees staying home; principals and teachers upset and concerned for their students because they all were hiding,” Gonzales said.
There was a lot of chaos, particularly on social media, about where the Border Patrol was operating and whom they were targeting. De La Rosa said there were sightings of agents near schools.
“There was a lot of terror — or just fear — that trickled into kids not going to school,” Lopez said.
News reports, videos and posts on social media about immigration enforcement have caused many local immigrants to question whether it’s safe to send their students to school or even leave their homes at all.
Residents from across Kern County showed up in Bakersfield on Friday to protest the agents’ presence, saying they were there on behalf of terrified families and friends in their community — the undocumented, those in the midst of applying for asylum, green cards or citizenship — who are concerned about federal immigration enforcement.
Vanessa Acevedo, one of those protesters, said her sister-in-law, who is undocumented, is afraid to go to work or leave her house for any reason and has been relying on others to take her children to school.
Many of the areas targeted by Border Patrol agents are frequented by Latin American immigrants, but the video of a citizen being detained sent shock waves into the local Sikh community as well, according to Raji Brar, co-founder of the Bakersfield Sikh Women’s Association.
Many immigrants in the Sikh community have green cards or are going through the asylum process, she said. Seeing an American citizen being detained was “jarring” to them and a shocking “abuse of power,” Brar said.
She said the local gurdwaras, or places of worship, were empty over the weekend. Some parents have told her that they’re not going to work and that they’re keeping their children home out of an abundance of caution.
“It was a wake-up call for all of us who happen to look a little different,” Brar said.
Preparing for the second term of Donald Trump
As state and local school officials prepare for the second term of Donald Trump, who promised unprecedented mass deportations of immigrants, California Attorney General Rob Bonta recently released updated guidance for how K-12 schools and colleges should respond to immigration enforcement agents. Some school districts have reiterated they are “sanctuary schools” — a stance many developed during Trump’s first term — and that they wouldstrictly limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
But the operation conducted by the Border Patrol in Kern County seemed to come ahead of the expected schedule — Trump won’t become president until Jan. 20.
“It’s really challenging, because I think we knew this was a possibility with this new administration,” De La Rosa said. “But (last week’s operation) caught everyone off guard.”
Last week, Bakersfield City School District sent a message to its staff reminding them of guidance from the state attorney general and also a policy its board passed in 2017 called the Safe Haven Resolution, which designates schools as “protected areas” where immigration enforcement should not occur. District spokesperson Tabatha Mills clarified that no agents have visited the district’s schools.
De La Rosa said that Bakersfield City School District is also planning to reach out to parents concerned about immigration enforcement through the district’s community engagement liaisons.
This week, Delano Union School District plans to pass out cards to families, referred to as red cards, that have information about the rights everyone has under the U.S. Constitution, according to Assistant Superintendent April Gregerson.
An estimated 1 in 10, or 1 million, children in California have at least one undocumented parent, and approximately 133,000 children in the state’s public schools are undocumented themselves, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
A 2018 publication by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research reported that zealous application of immigration laws causes school enrollment to drop and can set back the education of young people, including many U.S. citizens. The study found that Latino enrollment dropped nearly 10% in communities where local law enforcement collaborated with ICE.
State leadership
The Border Patrol’s actions in Kern County have drawn condemnation from state leaders. The California Latino Legislative Caucus released a statement saying the unannounced raids are “sowing chaos and discord.” The group urged the Border Patrol to announce their raids and to avoid sensitive areas, including schools.
“It is seemingly a rogue group of Border Patrol officers that just decided to take it upon themselves to hang out at where farmworkers hang out, hang out where day laborers hang out and decide to essentially round them up and do exactly what the Trump administration threatened that they were going to do,” said state Sen. Lena Gonzalez D-Long Beach.
Gonzalez and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond have introduced a bill that aims to establish a 1-mile “safe zone” around schools and prohibit schools from allowing immigration authorities to enter a campus or share information without a judicial warrant.
Gonzalez, along with Thurmond, plan to reach out to educators for feedback on how best to craft and ultimately implement this bill so that families feel safe sending their children to school.
Students who encounter any violation of their rights at their school — such as through harassment or bullying — can file a complaint through the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights or the Uniform Complaint Procedure through their local district, De La Rosa said.
She also encouraged parents who are concerned about detention or deportation to file affidavits to instruct school or health officials about who may make decisions about a student. This can be especially crucial for disabled students who have an individualized education program.
“Families really need reassurance from their district leaders and their elected leaders,” said De La Rosa. “If that doesn’t happen, they have a right to file a complaint and hold folks accountable.”
“I am an immigrant, and I didn’t come here to do anything bad,” Mejias said. “They think that anybody who comes here, that is not from the U.S., has bad intentions. People don’t immigrate just because they want to leave their country. They immigrate because they want to change their future. They want to work and have a different life.”
Mejias’ goal is to transfer to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo following the completion of the required computer science transfer courses at Saddleback College. Then Mejias wants to find remote work and return home to Venezuela.
“I really miss my country, my people,” Mejias said. “I will see if I come back,” he added, because the changing social climate and attitude toward immigration in the U.S. has contributed to Mejias’ hesitation about a future visit to the states.
He also feels more comfortable in California. “I’ve been to different states, and there you see people (who are possessive of) their territory. They carry guns and everything. I’m like, ‘Oh, I am going back to California,’” Mejias said. “I think because I am here in California, I feel way way more safe than being in any part of the U.S.”
Financial aid staff at California’s colleges and universities have a cautiously optimistic message to share this spring — but are weighing contingencies in case massive restructuring and cuts at the U.S. Department of Education upend federal aid this summer and fall.
First, the good news. Federal aid for this spring term — like Pell Grants and work-study aid — has already been disbursed. Universities are processingfiles from theFree Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, for next fall on schedule. And in turn, colleges aresending prospective students preview offers of grants and other support they are eligible to receive if they enroll.
But trepidation is building about what’s ahead for the hundreds of thousands of California college students receiving Pell Grants and federal loans. Layoffs that have roughly halved the U.S. Department of Education’s workforce “raise serious concerns about the near future, particularly potential delays to the upcoming FAFSA cycle and the federal government’s capacity to accurately distribute billions in student aid,” said Toni DeBoni, the associate vice president for enrollment management at CSU Channel Islands.
Trump administration officials have pledged not to interrupt services as they wind down the Education Department, which would require congressional action to be formally eliminated. Trump says student loan servicing has “been a mess” and that it would improve under the SBA. But critics charge that dismantling Education parceling out its workload could hamper the distribution of aid to millions of students and harm student borrowers.
If those dire predictions prove true, the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) systems would face disruption to a major funding source. Cal State received almost $2.3 billion and UC about $1.7 billion in federal student aid in the 2022-23 school year, much of it for Pell Grants and student loans. Any delay would also be felt at California community colleges, where 24% of students received a Pell Grant in the 2023-24 school year.
Both university systems are reassuring prospective students and saying they think federal student aid will continue uninterrupted, despite fears of possible cutbacks.
A UC spokesperson said in a statement that the system of 10 campuses does “not expect recent news about the U.S. Department of Education to impact our ability to award and disburse financial aid to our students” and that federal grants and loans remain available “with no anticipated changes to availability in the foreseeable future.”
A CSU spokesperson said the 23-campus university system does not anticipate any delay or stop to federal student aid in the 2025-26 school year, adding that “the number of [student and parent] concerns regarding recent federal actions haven’t been widespread.” Systemwide, almost 42% of CSU students receive a Pell Grant, a form of aid for students from low-income families that can provide up to $7,395 for the 2025-26 award year.
However, Cal State officials addressed the uncertaintyabout federal changes more directly at the March meeting of the system’s board of trustees.
“We know that there have been some (departures) of employees in the Department of Education,” Chancellor Mildred García said. “We are concerned about the process it will take to really go through the FAFSA, and that’s the most that we have heard.”
“We don’t know who’s going to be processing our FAFSA applications, who is the people in charge, etc.,” she added.
Nathan Evans, theCSU system’s chief academic officer, said that students and families seeking help with their federal student aid “are having difficulty in connecting and engaging with folks that support the FAFSA process at the federal level. So our teams at our universities are working as hard as possible, but sometimes those answers can only come from the folks that are helping support that directly.”
Meanwhile, the California Student Aid Commission reported in late February that the number of high school seniors completing financial aid applications was down 25% compared with the same point two years ago, before the rocky rollout of the 2024-25 FAFSA. State officials attributed the decline in part to a nearly two-month delay in the opening last fall of the currentfederal financial aid cycle.
Aiming to boost applications, the California Student Aid Commission extended the state’s priority deadline — the date by which students planning to attend four-year schools must apply for most state aid programs — until April 2. The latest commission data shows that as of April 1, about 55% of current high school seniors have completed a FAFSA or the California Dream Act Application, a form of state financial aid aimed at undocumented students. An aid commission spokesperson said the commission plans to sooncompare applications through early April to previous years.
So far, there are promising signs that aid applications are increasing. An analysis by the National College Attainment Network found that FAFSA submissions in California have risen 11% year-over-year. Financial aid staff at Cal Poly Pomona, CSU Bakersfield and UC Riverside said they have observed more FAFSA applications than in the previous year or two, suggesting a return to normal after complications with the new FAFSA.
But financial aid officials said Trump’s call to close the Department of Education has led some families to mistakenly conclude that federal student aid is no longer available, discouraging them from applying. Officials are working to counter that misinformation.
Chad Morris, the director of financial aid and scholarships at CSU Bakersfield, has a simple message to families questioning whether federal aid will be reduced or delayed: Apply anyway. “Take the steps as if there won’t be any disruption,” he said.
Cal Poly Pomona is also trying to keep students focused on the here-and-now basics: The Department of Education is still operational; Pell Grants and federal student loans are protected by the law and are still available; students should apply as usual.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Jessica Wagoner, the university’s senior associate vice president for enrollment management and services, “but what we can do is tell (students) what’s going on now.”
Those soothing messages could be muddied by the loaded choice facing students who are eligible for federal aid as U.S. citizens or permanent residents, butwho have spouses or parents who are undocumented immigrants. Students from such mixed-status families may have particular apprehension about whether data submitted through the FAFSA could be used for immigration enforcement purposes, though federal law prevents the U.S. Department of Education from using information students enter into the FAFSA for a purpose other than determining a student’s aid.
University of California students have sued the Education Department, accusing it of turning over sensitive federal student aid data to members of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. A federal judge in March blocked DOGE from accessing private data housed at the Education Department.
“When students are completing the FAFSA, they need to really look at the risk factor that they may take, especially mixed-status families,” said Jose Aguilar, the executive director of UC Riverside’s financial aid office. “But at the end of the day, if they are eligible for these federal grants and programs, I would encourage them to apply through the FAFSA.”
UC Riverside has already started sending new students preliminary aid award letters. Its students receive about $79 million in Pell Grants, another $3 million from federal work study and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant combined, and an additional $70 million in federal direct subsidized student loans, Aguilar said.
Given the swings in federal education policy this spring, some university officials are starting to think about how they might respond if federal aid is delayed. DeBoni of CSU Channel Islandssaid her campusis “actively preparing contingency measures.” The university could extend internal deadlines for students to accept admissions offers or apply for scholarships, she said, and institutional scholarships could help to fund students’ expenses.
At Cal Poly Pomona, Wagoner said the university could give students waiting for aid similar leeway. But the university, where almost 44%of students receive a Pell Grant, would face “a very big challenge” in the unlikely event of an abrupt drop in Pell dollars, Wagoner added. “I don’t know if we — if any institution — could supplement that loss.”
