This story was originally reported by Barbara Rodriguez of The 19th. Meet Barbara and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.
A jump in immigration enforcement arrests under the Trump administration is having a detrimental impact on America’s child care system, reducing the number of immigrant workers available and prompting mothers with young children to leave their jobs as they scramble for stable care.
That’s according to a report released Wednesday by the Better Life Lab at the nonprofit New America, which examined how increased arrests during the first half of the year by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has had a ripple effect on a women-led child care workforce where about 1 in 5 workers are immigrants.
The report estimates there are roughly 39,000 fewer foreign-born child care workers since Trump took office in January. There are also 77,000 fewer American mothers of preschool-aged children in the workforce since that time, a result that researchers found is tied to the impact of ICE arrests. Mothers have already been exiting the workforce in droves.
“It’s not surprising that we find that disruptions to the child care market vis-à-vis an increase in immigration enforcement has led to a decline in the number of foreign-born workers, and because of the disruptions in the child care market, this has led to spillovers in the labor market for mothers with kids more generally,” said Chris M. Herbst, one of the authors of the report and a professor of public policy at Arizona State University whose research includes the economics of child care. “These kinds of immigration-induced disruptions have had negative labor market implications.”
The group analyzed federal labor statistics and newly compiled ICE arrest data between September 2023 and July 2025 and found that immigrant labor — both among foreign-born and U.S.-born child care workers — decreased as arrests spiked this year and workers tried to avoid being targeted by ICE agents. The report estimates ICE arrests rose more than threefold between December 2024 and June of this year — from just over 8,300 to more than 29,000.
The dynamics also appear to be shifting some workers away from formal center- and home-based employment settings toward private households in work as a babysitter, nanny or au pair. Those shifts may reduce the total number of spots a day care can offer.
“Pay is often under the table, and there’s no formal regulation of this sector,” Herbst said. “We don’t know if it’s high quality, if it’s low quality, how good the pay is — but what it is is less visible, and workers may feel less vulnerable as a result.”
The drop in foreign-born child care workers is most pronounced among highly educated immigrants and those from Mexico. There’s also a 30 percent decrease among Hispanic workers, particularly Mexican workers, born in the United States. ICE agents have also detained U.S. citizens amid widespread arrests.
“ICE arrests are having chilling effects on groups that are not eligible for deportation,” Herbst said. “U.S.-born workers of any race or ethnicity are not eligible for deportation, and the fact that we’re seeing reductions in U.S.-born employment among Hispanics, in particular Mexicans, speaks potentially to this chilling effect that ICE is having on these workers.”
Herbst said the administration sold mass deportations on the theory that they would unclog the labor market and create more job opportunities for Americans. That’s not what is playing out in the child care industry, which shows how immigrants and U.S. citizens don’t always compete for the same jobs.
“When a foreign-born worker is not showing up to work anymore because they’re scared, it makes the U.S.-born worker in that program — it makes it more difficult for them to do their jobs because they are doing complementary tasks rather than serving as substitutes for one another.”
The changes to the child care workforce are also impacting employment opportunities among U.S. mothers with preschool-aged children, especially White mothers and those who are highly educated.
“Parents, mothers in particular, rely on having stable child care available in order to work. And
when you increase instability in the child care market, essentially by ramping up immigration enforcement, you’re scaring the heck out of a lot of workers who are no longer going to show up,” Herbst said. “Because of that, the nation's ability to provide child care services has declined. Families can no longer find the needed child care to go to work, and as a result, we’re seeing in the data, there are fewer mothers employed.”
This is not the first time researchers have examined the impact of immigration enforcement on child care. A federal program aimed at checking the immigration status of people arrested by local police and in effect between 2008 and 2013 also reduced the foreign-born child care work force and decreased the workforce among American mothers with young children.
Trump has made mass immigrant deportation a central policy during his second term. The scope of related arrests and subsequent detentions has included people without criminal backgrounds, including pregnant and postpartum people, and reached into locations once deemed sensitive by the federal government like schools, hospitals and churches.
Trump’s policy decision to rescind “sensitive location” status for places like day cares has translated into more immigration enforcement arrests near centers. A recent arrest of a day care worker inside a Chicago area center as children watched garnered national outrage.
Immigration arrests are expected to continue in the new year. Congress approved a massive tax law last summer that included $170 billion over the next four years for immigration enforcement, including for detentions and deportations. Researchers believe as ICE hires more officers and ramps up arrests, the child care sector could be further harmed.
Herbst said he expects disruptions not just to the child care sector but to other industries that are immigrant intensive.
“What I hope our paper does is start to get people thinking about the trade offs involved in this kind of immigration enforcement policy,” he said. “It’s been sold to us as a policy that’s going to be a boon for American workers, for U.S.-born workers. But I think what we’re finding is that there are trade offs.”
