'Chilled out of the labor force': watchdog sounds alarm as ICE spreads child care panic

Increased arrests by immigration enforcement agents under the second Trump administration have created a “chilling effect” on the child care industry, resulting in a decrease in workers and in turn less mothers in the workforce, according to a new report from New America, a progressive Washington think tank.

Unveiled on Wednesday, “The Impact of Increased ICE Activity on the Child Care Workforce and Mothers’ Employment,” revealed that 77,000 U.S.-born mothers with children aged 0 to 5 dropped out of the workforce between January 2025 and July 2025 due to “the rise in immigration enforcement,” said Chris Herbst, a report author.

In 2025, mothers’ labor force participation declined by 3 percent, Herbst said.

In an industry where one in five workers are immigrants, there was a decrease of 39,000 foreign-born child care workers during the same time period.

“Because immigration enforcement has made it more difficult for foreign-born workers to do their jobs, their native-born counterparts who depend on their immigrant colleagues have suddenly found that it's more difficult to do their jobs as well,” Herbst said.

While the majority of foreign-born child care workers are in the United States legally, the increase in arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has still created fear for those working in the industry — especially after widespread coverage of ICE detaining a Chicago daycare worker last month.

There’s been a “pretty big” reduction in the number of Hispanic or Mexican U.S.-born individuals in the child care industry as well, Herbst said.

“These are individuals who should not be afraid of ICE,” Herbst said.

“They are not eligible to be deported, and yet they are also leaving the child care sector, and I think for that reason, one of the potential explanations we have is that they've been chilled out of the labor force.”

‘Fear and confusion’

Herbst, a professor at Arizona State University, said the report provides “some of the very first empirical evidence on the labor market consequences of the recent escalation in immigration enforcement.”

“We think the time is right for this kind of report,” Herbst said, as employment figures for child care workers and mothers of preschool-age children are “particularly important in the context of immigration enforcement.”

Researchers used employment data from the Current Population Survey and ICE arrest data from the Deportation Data Project.

“We think that mothers’ employment may be particularly vulnerable to immigration enforcement insofar as it causes disruptions in the child care industry,” Herbst said.

President Donald Trump notably rescinded a directive under former President Joe Biden that protected child care centers, nursery schools and preschools from ICE activity, Herbst said.

The report found that workers in child care centers, rather than private homes, were more likely to have their work affected by immigration enforcement.

“The center-based sector, this is the formal sector. These individuals, as a result, may feel more exposed,” Herbst said.

“Their wages are reported for tax purposes. Child-care centers are often visited unannounced by state child care regulators, and I think the sort of fear and confusion that the ICE has created may have been felt more deeply by those employed in the center-based sector, and they have maybe moved from centers to private households in an attempt to be less visible and feel more protected.”

Herbst said the report’s “estimates may understate the magnitude” of the effects of ICE arrests on child care workers and mothers.

“What I hope this report does is start a conversation about the potential tradeoffs associated with this kind of immigration policy,” Herbst said.

“The administration has talked a lot about the potential benefits. I don't think that we as a country have really started to reckon with the potential downsides of this kind of policy, and I hope what this report does is start a conversation about those downsides.”

With ICE receiving more than $170 billion over four years for increased enforcement activities, Herbst said, “we as researchers need to stay on the case in terms of uncovering what are the potential impacts of all of this new enforcement energy.”

“I would anticipate in the months and years ahead that we will begin to have kind of a full reckoning of the sort of trade-offs associated with this kind of policy.”

Over the coming months, Herbst said he expects the “disruptive effects” of increased immigration enforcement on mothers and child care workers to be “much greater.”

“Even if you look at just sort of the chilling effects alone, I think people are feeling an unprecedented amount of fear and confusion in this new environment.”