Maryland Hispanic student enrollment declines amid immigration fears

Hispanic enrollment in Maryland public schools began to decline during the last school year after growing at an average rate of 4.7% a year since pandemic-era lows, according to state data finalized earlier this summer.

As classes resume this fall, parents, teachers and other community members reflected on how immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump has cast a shadow over immigrant and Latino families and their public school students. With immigration arrests taking place just outside their doors and immigrant parents being detained on their way to work, fewer a Latino students are showing up in class.

“We don’t know the full impact yet, but the new enrollment numbers raise serious concerns,” said Donna Christy, president of the Prince George’s County Educator’s Association. “We have to keep the focus on ensuring immigrant students are safe and protected at schools here in our community.”

Maryland’s overall enrollment also fell. But Hispanic enrollment declined for the first time in years despite continued robust growth in the state’s Hispanic population, a shift that stood out among Maryland’s major racial groups. White and Black student enrollment declined consistently from the 2021-22 school year through last school year, at rates never deviating more than 0.83 points, according to Maryland State Department of Education data released in June.

“I think it’s definitely going to, unfortunately, increase in the upcoming years of, you know, this current federal administration if we don’t see any type of change,” said We Are CASA Education Director Shannon Wilk de Benitez of the trend.

Other statistics have shown a similar turn for the state’s Latino K-12 public school students. The graduation rate fell 4.4% from the 2023-24 to 2024-25 school years among Hispanic students and 5.5% for English learners, while the overall rate fell just 1.2%, according to data released in January.

The Class of 2025 saw a stark difference in policy. Just after Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, his administration rescinded the Biden-era policy that directed immigration enforcement agents to refrain from apprehending people at or around “sensitive locations,” such as hospitals, places of worship and schools.

In the last year of Biden’s presidency, there were around 1,300 arrests by immigration enforcement, according to data from the Deportation Data Project. In the first year of Trump’s second term, that number nearly tripled to almost 4,700, forcing state and county school officials to reckon with the need to be ready to respond to enforcement in their communities.

State officials in January said that’s a reason behind the decline in 2025 Hispanic graduates, according to reporting by The Baltimore Banner. Superintendents in January this year met with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Officials, including Baltimore Field Office Interim Director Nikita Baker.

A similar meeting was held in 2025, according to Maryland State Department of Education Director of Communications Cherie Duvall-Jones. But she didn’t say if any meetings have occurred since.

State Superintendent Carey Wright told The Banner that ICE officials at the January meeting said they wouldn’t enter public school buildings or use the vicinity to stage raids.

But in June, an arrest occurred just outside Baltimore’s Commodore John Rodgers Elementary and Middle School, an action Gov. Wes Moore called “deeply disturbing.”

In a statement to Maryland Matters, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson wrote: “ICE is not going to schools to make arrests. If a dangerous or violent illegal criminal alien felon were to flee into a daycare, or a child sex offender is working as an employee, there may be a situation where an arrest is made to protect the safety of the children.”

But U.S. District Judge Julie Rubin ordered the victim’s release in July after ruling that agents lacked probable cause to make the arrest.

“After what happened in Baltimore at Commodore John Rodgers Elementary, that fear is real. No child should have that experience,” Christy said. “Governor Moore’s statement was clear — we cannot allow this to happen again.”

A ‘chilling impact’

At school international enrollment offices, “numbers are way down in unprecedented levels,” according de Benitez, particularly in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties where more than half the state’s roughly 210,000 Hispanic students attend school.

“At the exact same time, those staff members feel like their workload has tripled,” because those offices are often immigrants’ first points of contact, she said.

Liliana López, public information officer for Montgomery County Public Schools, said Montgomery did see a decrease in students who are either new to the U.S. or returning after two or more years abroad.

Of Maryland schools with at least 500 Hispanic students, 12 of the 20 sharpest declines in Hispanic student enrollment last school year occurred in Montgomery County, with decreases ranging from 6 to 11%, according to data from the state education department. Hispanic enrollment fell by an average of more than 3% across Montgomery County public schools.

“Anytime people are seeing immigration enforcement in these spaces that are supposed to be safe community spaces, it has a real chilling, immediate impact,” de Benitez said.

Nicole de la Torre, a parent teacher organization leader and volunteer for the Prince George’s County Immigration Rights Collective, said she’s seen that firsthand.

“Over the last year, we’ve witnessed parents being taken away from their families after dropping their children off at school,” she said. “A sudden detention can leave families struggling with child care, transportation, rent, food, work, communicating with the detained parent – and the lasting effects of this trauma.”

The collective’s community care team has provided support to more than 150 families with children in Prince George’s who have lost their primary breadwinner, according to de la Torre.

At Rosa Parks Elementary in Prince George’s, roughly nine of every 10 students are Hispanic. Pre-Kindergarten teacher Jackie Clark said she saw fewer of them last school year, and her coworkers told her the same thing about their classes.

“It’s been just this year that happened – this past year,” said Clark, who’s taught at Rosa Parks for six years. “We predict that’s going to continue on this year too.”

De la Torres said that concern about family safety and stability can be too overwhelming for children to go to school, and some older students take on adult responsibilities in the absence of missing relatives.

“Their desire to stay in school can be overshadowed by basic, daily survival,” she said of the children. “Fear of immigration enforcement keeps parents from engaging with schools, and parents who want to participate in their children’s education often feel that it simply isn’t safe to do so,” she added.

The burden falls on school staff and service providers too, who don’t have the resources to face the challenge of federal pressure, de la Torres said.

Child care providers carry some of that weight. But like Maryland schools, on-site immigration enforcement and falling enrollment have been issues at the Arco Iris Bilingual Children’s Center too, said Carolina Reyes, director of the center in Laurel.

“In child care, in early childhood education, we are seeing, actually, a scary low enrollment,” Reyes said of the last two years. In 13 years, “I always had a waitlist,” Reyes said. But last year, the center enrolled roughly 80% of its capacity, and now only about half, she said.

A week before Christmas last year, ICE agents parked 11 cars in the lot just outside Arco Iris, according to Reyes.

“We were worried and concerned,” she said. “A lot of my families, you know, they were scared for a while, and they stopped coming because they didn’t want to risk anything.”

Reyes said she was asked by a parent if she’s seeing less enrollment because people fear the center’s Spanish name will attract extra attention from immigration agents, a notion she hadn’t reckoned with before.

“It’s sad, and that makes me sad to think that in order for us to be safe or to feel protected, I have to hide my culture, I have to hide my language,” she said. “That is what is happening to this beautiful and amazing country today.”

Building blocks under strain

State and local policies may also have played a role.

When the state froze its childcare scholarship program in May 2025, it hit parents hard, Reyes said. Lawmakers this year allocated $20 million for the program, which returned to awarding scholarships July 1. But there’s a waitlist, and Reyes hasn’t seen any progress yet.

“The fact that they cut the childcare scholarship last year brought us a huge, huge burden to the families and the community,” she said. Reyes said some parents have told her, “When I need to go to an interview, I cannot go to an interview with my child. I don’t have a support system who can take care of my child, so I need to have childcare first.”

This year, the General Assembly passed the Community Trust Act, and counties have passed their own versions, like the County Values Act in Montgomery County.

Even then, Montgomery residents are urging their local governments to pass their own laws. Protesters rallied earlier this month in Gaithersburg with that demand, after a mother of three was detained in the city July 28.

“In reality, virtually all counties were collaborating with ICE to some extent, but without any formalized agreement,” said de Benitez, explaining the desire for such laws across multiple levels of government.

De Benitez said it’s too early to tell how effective those laws will be, especially amid litigation by the Department of Justice against Maryland over the Community Trust Act filed in July.

“I think it’s gonna be a mixed bag,” she said. But she also said she’s inspired by the growing recognition that people share a stake in their communities.

“People for the first time are really coming together in a larger movement – people realizing this is not just about immigrants,” de Benitez said. “It really is like we can keep each other safe. That’s been a beautiful thing that’s come out of this terrible situation.”