Immigration and Customs Enforcement Raids the Pillar of a Community: Student Achievement, Absenteeism, and Mobility Following a Large Worksite Enforcement Operation in North Texas

Abstract

The scale and violence of workplace raids distinguish them from other interior enforcement actions, and they warrant careful scrutiny given their power to produce serious immediate and long-term consequences for entire communities with a single act. In this paper, we examine the short- and longer-run impacts of exposure to one large-scale workplace raid that occurred in Sumner, Texas, in August of 2018 on students’ academic and behavioral outcomes. We analyze student absenteeism, academic performance, and school mobility from the 2011–2012 to the 2021–2022 school year, which includes the period prior to and after the Load Trail raid. Our results indicate that there were large and direct consequences associated with the raid for Latinx and English learner students attending schools in four affected counties. In particular, student absenteeism increased markedly following the raid, reading and math test scores declined, and there were sharp increases in the number of students leaving their school districts. This study contributes to the growing body of evidence documenting how acts of community violence such as large-scale workplace raids can corrode institutional trust and severely impact the well-being of immigrants’, their children, and their communities.