Hoover Institution (Stanford, CA)—A new study reveals that immigration raids in early 2025 resulted in a 22 percent increase in daily student absences in central California communities that lasted at least two months.
The research, conducted by Thomas Dee, Robert and Marion Oster Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, analyzed attendance data from five school districts in California’s Central Valley where unexpected immigration raids occurred in January 2025.
It found that the enforcement actions, dubbed “Operation Return to Sender” by US Customs and Border Protection, had immediate and statistically significant consequences for school attendance. The impact was particularly pronounced among the youngest students, with pre-kindergarten children showing a 32 percent absence rate, even higher than the overall average of all K-12 students.
Dee examined daily attendance records spanning the current and two previous school years in five Central Valley school districts to establish a connection between raids, which began on January 7, 2025 (prior to Donald J. Trump taking office), and the absences.
The study suggests that parents’ fears of being separated from their children during immigration enforcement actions led many families to keep their children home from school. This trend raises concerns about educational disruption, increased childhood stress, and diminished learning opportunities for affected students.
“The sharp increase in student absences caused by these raids is a leading indicator of their developmental impact beyond the direct effect on instructional time for the students missing school,” Dee said. “These effects, such as family stress, can add to the negative implications for longer-run educational and economic success. Furthermore, these absences can also complicate teacher management of their instructional pacing, which has implications for all students’ learning.”
The research comes amid a dramatic expansion of local immigration raids across the United States during the first two months of 2025. Experts note this enforcement approach appears to represent a departure from previous guidelines that limited Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations near hospitals, schools, and places of worship.
The findings build on previous research documenting how immigration enforcement can negatively impact educational outcomes. Multiple earlier studies have shown connections between deportation threats and declines in academic achievement, attendance, and school climate.
Dee’s study highlights the broader policy implications of immigration enforcement strategies, particularly how they can disrupt educational systems and potentially harm child development. The increase in chronic absenteeism is especially concerning as it threatens academic recovery efforts following the COVID-19 pandemic, which already caused significant educational disruptions.
“These absences may also be an early signal of families leaving these communities,” Dee said. “That mobility will add to the financial challenges facing school districts already struggling with enrollment loss in the wake of the pandemic. And it suggests there may be negative effects for local economic development as well.”
Local media accounts from publications like the Los Angeles Times and Fresno Bee had previously reported anecdotal evidence of attendance issues following immigration raids. Dee’s research provides statistical confirmation of these observations, quantifying the precise impact on student attendance.
The study also references prior research showing that protecting unauthorized immigrant mothers improves their children’s mental health, suggesting that the current enforcement approach could have negative psychological consequences for affected families.
As debates continue about immigration policy and enforcement priorities, this research offers evidence that aggressive raid tactics may carry significant educational and social costs, particularly for young children who show the highest sensitivity to such disruptions.
Dee’s paper notes that many children of unauthorized immigrants are US citizens themselves, making the educational impacts of immigration enforcement a domestic policy issue with implications for American-born students.
With chronic absenteeism already threatening post-pandemic academic recovery, as noted in Dee’s previous research, the additional absences triggered by immigration raids could further complicate educational progress in affected communities.
The study represents one of the first quantitative assessments of how the recent expansion of immigration enforcement has affected school attendance, providing policymakers with data to consider when evaluating the full impact of these operations beyond their immediate enforcement objectives.
