Excerpts
- About half of in-home child-care providers and a quarter of the teaching staff at larger child-care centers in Los Angeles are immigrants.
- Among these workers, fear has become palpable amid ongoing immigration raids.
- They are locking down children inside, limiting outdoor play and making plans in case a parent is detained.
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Among child-care providers in Los Angeles, whose job is to protect the youngest and most vulnerable residents of Los Angeles, the fear has become palpable. Now, in addition to worries for their own safety and those of their loved ones, they are grappling with one of the most difficult questions of their professional lives: How will they keep the children safe amid the consequences of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids?
Since June 6, when ICE began widespread raids throughout Los Angeles, fear has infiltrated nearly every facet of life, as masked federal agents have converged on Home Depot parking lots, knocked on the doors of private homes, swept away street vendors, and detained people at a swap meet and gas station. The delicate child-care industry is no exception.
About half of in-home child-care providers and a quarter of the teaching staff at larger child-care centers in Los Angeles are immigrants, according to the UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Child Care Employment.
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When a parent disappears
Foundation for Early Childhood Education, a Head Start provider with 20 centers in East L.A. that cares for about 500 children, said federal agents have been spotted near several of their centers based at housing projects. Attendance is down across the board. Head Start, a federally funded program, accepts children based on family income and is not required to check for immigration status.
“Parents want to keep their kids close. They’re afraid to send them anywhere because they’ve heard about ICE coming on school campuses,” said Jocelyn Tucker, the organization’s assistant director.
Teachers — some of whom have been at the program for 30 years — have also been panicked, she said, especially as rumors swirled recently that ICE was at a Head Start center at El Monte City School District. Luis Bautista, executive director of the Los Angeles County Office of Education Head Start and Early Learning Division, did not confirm the El Monte sighting but said federal agents had been near several Head Start centers close to dismissal time.
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