MEDIA CONTACTS: 

Melissa Stek, Communications Consultant, melissa@mountgem.com 

Tom Salyers, Director of Communications, tsalyers@clasp.org 

Washington, D.C., April 16, 2026—Today, directly impacted educators and lead researchers released two new reports authored by the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) highlighting the impacts of the Trump Administration’s 2025 immigration policies on young children and early care and education providers in Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Texas, and Washington. The research reveals profound threats to children’s development and well-being, the mental health of caregivers, and the child care and early education industry. 

Suma Setty, Senior Policy Analyst, CLASP:  “We met over 100 people across the country who are experiencing the cruelty of harsh immigration policies. It is clear that these policies, along with attacks on early care and education programs, are tearing families apart and weakening our systems of support for all families with young children. Babies and toddlers have no concept of their parents’ immigration status, and yet it is being used to rob them of what they need to thrive. All children deserve the protection of adults, to live and grow in safety with their loving caregivers without fear. Policymakers have an opportunity to intervene and limit immigration enforcement’s harm on children and strengthen the tenuous scaffolding that keeps families with young children engaged in our society. Intervening now will have cascading benefits throughout the lives of young children and for our nation’s future.”

Kaelin Rapport, Ph.D., Policy Analyst, CLASP:  “Immigrant communities and the early educators and caregivers who support them are struggling immensely. Current immigration policies and enforcement practices are leaving parents, providers, and children stressed, traumatized, and sometimes too afraid to leave the house—even to get basic necessities. Workplaces are being raided, people are being stopped in the street for speaking languages other than English, and children are seeing guns drawn on their parents while they’re on the playground. No child should have to worry about whether their parent will make it home from work or running errands. Caregivers and early educators should not have to worry about their own safety while preparing the next generation for a healthy future. Without immediate action from lawmakers to protect our children and immigrant communities, these policies will have rippling consequences that reach across American communities and national borders for generations.” 

Elizabeth Gonzalez, Community Organizer, Congress of Communities in Detroit, MI: “Increased immigration operations have brought nothing but fear and harm to children, families, and care providers in Southwest Detroit. As director of Informal Childcaregivers Cohort, I’ve had to educate immigrant child care providers on their rights and how to remain calm if they encounter immigration agents. Over the past year, we’ve seen significant drops in enrollment in our programs and Head Start because families are scared. My own grandson now worries that his loved ones will be taken after his classmate’s parent was taken by ICE. When he sees a law enforcement officer, he asks, ‘is that a good guy or a bad guy?’ and I’ve honestly had to tell him that I don’t know. With our communities under attack, this country no longer feels like the United States of America—we’re just states. But to assure our children and staff at our centers, we say, ‘estamos unidos para proteger a nuestros niños,’ or ‘we are united to protect our children.’ We call on our elected leaders to unite with us to protect our early educators and the children in their care.” 

Leah Cates, Executive Director, Second Street Youth Center in Plainfield, NJ: “Immigration enforcement doesn’t just stay out in the streets, it walks into our children’s classrooms. The impacts of this show up in children’s behavior, in their fear, and in their silence. We’re seeing increased anxiety, withdrawal, aggression, difficulty focusing, and developmental regression. Early childhood centers like ours have become more than just places of education. We have become safe havens, emotional support systems, and stabilizing forces. We are doing everything we can to ensure our families know that they can trust us and that they and their children are safe here. We are creating trauma-informed classrooms, providing Know Your Rights workshops, supporting families, and reassuring children they are safe, all while working to educate the youngest minds. But trust is always fragile when fear is constant. We cannot separate immigration policy from childhood development. Our lawmakers must take action now to enact policies that protect all children.”

Wendy Cervantes, Director of Immigration and Immigrant Families at CLASP and Director of the Children Thrive Action Network (CTAN): “The reports released today build off the research that CLASP published in 2018 and demonstrate how the Trump Administration’s immigration policies are once again undermining the well-being of our children and those who care for them. But this time, the scope of the harm is unlike anything we have ever seen, largely due to the historic increases in ICE funding to double down on detention and deportation, and the onslaught of policies to deny immigrant families the ability to meet their basic needs. Anti-immigrant policies that threaten our nation’s early educators, including the nearly 20 percent who are immigrants, further weaken the early care and education infrastructure that the administration has also attacked. Our policymakers must do everything in their power to halt the anti-child attacks, implement policies that will repair the harm, and protect the well-being of the youngest among us.”

Background: For this qualitative research project, the CLASP team conducted focus groups between June and December 2025 with 56 at-risk immigrant parents and family caregivers of 74 children ages six and under, and interviews with 67 early educators and child care providers, WIC staff, home visitors, health care workers, and community advocates in Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Texas, and Washington.

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The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) is a national, nonpartisan, anti-poverty organization advancing policy solutions for people with low incomes, with a focus on addressing systemic racism as the primary cause of poverty for communities of color.

The Children Thrive Action Network (CTAN) is a national network of children’s advocacy organizations and service providers committed to protecting and defending children in immigrant families, guided by policy principles to ensure that immigration policies safeguard children’s health, safety, and well-being. Since 2020, CTAN has urged federal and state officials to advance the “best interest of the child” in all policies and to reject policies that put children in harm’s way and undermine their safety.