School psychologists adapt to increased immigration enforcementProfessionals are trying to help children cope with fear, stress, and confusion as aggressive enforcement changes everyday life in class

GAB NEWS
1 hour ago
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rescinded its long-standing “sensitive locations” policy in January 2025, making schools no longer off-limits to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests. While ICE requires a judicial warrant or authorization from school officials to enter private spaces, agents may now access public areas—such as parking lots or lobbies—to enforce immigration laws. For many students, families, and school personnel, this shift has eroded their sense of safety and belonging at school, making once-mundane activities like school pickup and drop-off fraught.

“These families fear that just engaging in their daily lives might be a danger to their children and lead to family separation,” said Amanda Venta, PhD, director of the Youth and Family Studies Lab at the University of Houston and cochair of the APA Presidential Task Force on Immigration and Health. “It is not possible to overstate how damaging this is from a mental health standpoint.”

A new push for tougher immigration enforcement is reshaping policies and communities nationwide. In July 2025, H.R. 1, or the One Big Beautiful Act, allocated $75 billion in additional funding opens in new windowto ICE over 4 years, increasing the agency’s operational capacity for arrests, surveillance, and detentions.

More than 1 in 4 U.S. children (26%), most of whom were born in the United States, live with at least one immigrant parent, while 10.3% are noncitizens (Haley, J. M., et al., Children of Immigrants in 2022–23, Urban Institute, 2025opens in new window). Millions grow up in mixed-status families, including an estimated 5.6 million U.S.-citizen children who live in households with at least one undocumented resident (What will deportations mean for the child welfare system?, The Brookings Institution, 2025opens in new window). Yet the impact of enforcement extends far beyond families with undocumented members. Recent ICE operations have swept up legal immigrantsopens in new window and U.S. citizensopens in new window, leaving many to feel unprotected regardless of their status.

School psychologists find themselves uniquely positioned on the front lines. Their traditional duties—delivering assessments, counseling, and coordination of Individualized Education Programs (IEPs)—now intersect with legal and forensic activities, as some provide documentation for immigration-related proceedings and consult on crisis response protocols. In addition, many schools lack institutional policies protecting affected students or have inconsistent local- and state-level protections.

In some states, political hostility or apathy toward immigration may leave school psychologists isolated, searching for trusted allies and information. This leads many to feel “like they’re spitting in the ocean during a tsunami,” said Carola Suárez-Orozco, PhD, director of the Immigration Initiative at Harvard. “There’s the danger of compassion fatigue and secondary trauma.”

The real risk of burnout in this new climate is a significant concern, making self-care and boundary setting essential for professionals. These strategies can take multiple forms. For example, limiting exposure to distressing news or incorporating mindfulness practices can help maintain calm and strengthen coping skills. Both APA and the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) provide resources for managing secondary trauma. Professionals may also benefit from debriefing with a therapist. They may also turn to their professional support system and seek consultation from professional peer groups or request supervision from experienced colleagues.

A country-wide chilling effect

Schools are often the only places where children can access behavioral and mental health services. However, heightened enforcement is causing many families to pull away when students may need support the most. This chilling effect impacts disclosure, engagement, and the ability of schools to meet children’s emotional and academic needs.

For María del Carmen Needham, MS, a school psychologist based in Austin, Texas, with more than 18 years of experience, this new reality has reshaped her day-to-day work. Needham supports several districts nationwide through telehealth in addition to serving students in local charter schools. She has seen immigration enforcement affect even basic logistics like school pickups—in one case, a student refused to board a school bus, convinced ICE agents would be waiting to apprehend them or their families at their stop.

Needham now spends considerable time reassuring parents that schools can provide some safety despite the rollback of the sensitive locations policy. “It has created some challenges, and we have had to be flexible,” she said. “In the past, parents might come in for meetings, or we did interviews on-site. Now we’re having to rely on phone, Zoom, or video calls just to give parents the relief that they can still participate in our assessment process or the IEPs, whereas that wasn’t an area of concern before.”

Joanna Cross, MEd, EdS, provides assessment services to a charter high school based in downtown Chicago. Last fall, an extreme surge in ICE operations led many students to travel to school in groups for safety. Once they arrived on campus, they found it almost impossible to focus on schoolwork, and teachers cut back on demanding academic work as a result. Cross and her colleagues also had to calm the palpable anxiety of parents during meetings about their children’s IEPs and transition plans to college. Some expressed concerns that applying for financial aid could place their families on a list.

In her work, Monica Oganes, PhD, a licensed school psychologist and neuropsychologist who conducts forensic evaluations for immigration cases, noticed parents were less willing to disclose information pertinent to the diagnosis of their children. For example, symptoms that look like attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may be rooted in trauma rather than ADHD, but distinguishing between the two requires a comprehensive history. “We can only know what the child went through if we interview the family. Families don’t want to share what they went through, say, crossing the border, because they worry that their status is going to be out in the open and they can be targeted,” Oganes said. An incomplete picture of a child’s trauma history risks overlooking vital information that could impact provision of appropriate interventions.

Oganes, who is based in Miami and Orlando, has carved out a niche within school psychology: conducting forensic evaluations for immigration cases. Her work includes supporting asylum claims and hardship waivers, often providing expert testimony on how deportation of a primary caregiver could harm children, such as losing access to special education or medical care. The legal aspect of immigration is not covered in school psychology training, however. “It’s very important now more than ever that we start training people as to what is needed in the process,” Oganes said. “With our expertise in trauma and mental health, we can help provide the court with information that is relevant.”

As increased immigration enforcement around the country shows no signs of slowing, school psychologists can turn to their professional networks to strengthen their expertise. APA offers continuing education on immigration-related psychological evaluations associated with humanitarian options, while the National Child Traumatic Stress Network opens in new windowand Division 56 (Trauma Psychology) opens in new windowoffer multiple relevant resources and webinars. In addition, Oganes leads a multilingual interest groupopens in new window of school psychologists that meets monthly to discuss how best to help multilingual students in the areas of instruction, assessment, mental health, and immigration.

Creating a sense of safety

While school staff cannot guarantee complete protection from ICE agents with a valid warrant, they can take meaningful steps to create an environment that feels as safe and supportive as possible within the limits of the law. Ileana Moreno, PhD, a school psychologist based in the border town of Laredo, Texas, works to allay fears by reaffirming that her sessions are a “judgment-free zone,” where confidentiality is assured regardless of immigration status or mental health diagnosis. “I think the most important thing for anybody working with these children is to be a safe place.”

Moreno endorses the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework that combines universal and targeted strategies to meet the academic and emotional needs of all students. For example, Moreno encourages all school staff to make brief, consistent check-ins a routine part of the day. “Whether you are a school psychologist, teacher, or administrator, if you just keep asking the simple questions—How are you feeling today? How’s your family?—you show empathy,” Moreno said. By normalizing these small but meaningful interactions, schools can create a foundation of trust that is key to supporting student mental health.

Patricia Perez, PhD, an international psychologist and member of the APA Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education, emphasized that protecting student confidentiality related to immigration fears should be paramount during check-ins. She noted that schools can also encourage families to use the emotional check-in model at home. Simple check-ins at bedtime, during meals, or on the way to school can give children language for processing their feelings.

Needham recommends normalizing emotional regulation activities as another effective strategy. “One of my favorite things that our pre-K and kindergarten teachers do during circle time is talk about finding your center and helping students get grounded. They talk about feelings and emotions and how to identify when you might not be feeling okay,” she said. She added that creating calming corners and regulation breaks, where students can self-regulate or co-regulate in groups, is also helpful.

Celebrating students’ cultures, languages, and traditions is a powerful way to reduce feelings of shame and humiliation caused by rhetoric that disparages immigrants. “Young people’s sense of belongingness is such an essential Maslovian need,” Suárez-Orozco noted. “The pain of social rejection activates the same part of the brain as physical pain. You can’t really learn if you are agitated and feel excluded.” She added that school psychologists can tacitly communicate support by displaying photos, artwork, and signage that is welcoming of all identities.

Targeted approaches for students in need

School psychologists can also turn to targeted interventions to lessen the distress for the students most deeply affected. Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS) is a school-based approach that uses group counseling to help students process traumatic events, build coping skills, and decrease symptoms of PTSD and depression (Aganza, J. S., et al., Contemporary School Psychology, Vol. 23, 2019opens in new window). In acute crises—such as sudden parent detention—Aganza and colleagues also recommend schools employ Psychological First Aid (PFA) protocols. The Listen, Protect, Connect—Model and Teach framework is designed to stabilize the student immediately—help them cope in that moment—before connecting them to longer-term care or supports.

Another intervention model, Cariño Conscientizado, which roughly translates to critically conscious and authentic care, encourages educators and school staff to buffer against the effects of discriminatory practices and policies. They can do so by reframing students’ cultural and linguistic knowledge as strengths in the face of anti-immigrant sentiment (DeNicolo, C. P., et al., Review of Research in Education, Vol. 41, No. 1, 2017opens in new window).

Beyond direct student support, school psychologists can influence systemic responses. This includes advocating for district-level crisis protocols, staff training on immigration-related stress, and policies that protect confidentiality. Psychologists can also collaborate with administrators to ensure MTSS frameworks incorporate trauma-informed practices and culturally responsive supports. These efforts help create consistency and reduce isolation for professionals working in resource-limited contexts.

While school psychologists cannot remove the source of students’ fear, they can equip them with tools to cope with the omnipresent threat. Venta pointed to interventions used to address serious illness or grief, such as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). ACT helps to acknowledge students’ fear as legitimate while teaching them coping skills to manage their daily lives amid the chaos (Hayes, S. C., et al., The Counseling Psychologist, Vol. 40, No. 7, 2012opens in new window).

In the face of changes in enforcement, school psychologists can lead the way by fostering connection and care in the schools they serve, Venta added. “The best thing that we can do right now to counter the mental health effects of this is to dig our heels in on community,” she said. “It doesn’t matter who’s knocking on the door and whether or not they have a warrant; schools can continue to create a climate of warmth and belonging, and that will do a lot to protect everyone as we continue to deal with difficult things.”