Texas schools reported losing 14,200 immigrant kids last year. The true number is likely higher.
By Megan Menchaca, The Texas Tribune
September 30, 2026
Texas public schools lost more than 14,200 immigrant students last school year amid aggressive immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump, state data shows.
However, multiple immigration experts said schools likely saw a much larger drop in such students than indicated in official reports as the publicly available data only includes children who meet a specific definition of immigrant under the law.
The decline reflects a 7% drop in enrollment for the state’s immigrant students, the first since the pandemic. Texas identifies immigrant students as children who were not born in the U.S. and have not been attending school in any state for more than three full academic years.
Texas reported 179,423 immigrant students in the 2025-26 year with enrollment declines generally concentrated in large, urban districts.
The specific cause of the decline is unclear, but it comes as Trump promises the “the largest mass deportation effort by the federal government in U.S. history” during his second term. Soon after he took office, his administration rescinded a policy on restricting immigration enforcement in protected areas, including schools.
The number of monthly immigration-related arrests in Texas has skyrocketed since January 2025, according to the Deportation Data Project. Based on anecdotes from families, administrators from multiple districts, including Houston and Austin, have attributed much of their overall enrollment declines to an increase in deportations or fears of immigration enforcement.
“We knew that some of the immigration changes at the federal level were going to continue to have impacts in our schools, and they are,” AISD Superintendent Matias Segura said last week at The Texas Tribune Festival. “When you look at where we’re seeing students leave Austin ISD, you’re seeing them a lot in these areas where there is that (enforcement) activity, which is disheartening for sure.”
Texas provides schools state funding largely based on student attendance, meaning the loss of immigrant children resulted in tens of millions of dollars less for districts already grappling with broader enrollment declines, budget shortfalls, school closures, and staff cuts.
School districts identify children who meet the federal definition of immigrant students, but they do not ask for a students’ immigration or citizenship status. Those who are undocumented but have lived in Texas for years would not necessarily count as immigrant students.
Esmeralda Alday, the senior director of programs and impact at ImmSchools, an organization advocating for immigrant students and their families, said it was already a challenge for districts to ensure those children were attending school. That work now is exacerbated due to the increased immigration enforcement, she said.
“You have families that don’t want to send their kids to school,” Alday said. “You have families that are self-deporting every day. You have parents being detained, and older students having to drop out of school to start working.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials do not “target schools” and people who are living in the U.S. legally and are not breaking other laws have “nothing to fear,” according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security.
Deportation officers have mostly arrested people with no criminal convictions, federal government data shows.
“This is just another false narrative to try and demonize our brave ICE law enforcement who are facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them and an 8,000% increase in death threats,” the statement read.
Several large school districts, including Austin, Frisco, Fort Worth, Katy and Houston, reported overall enrollment declines last year, including higher percentage declines in immigrant students than the statewide average, Texas Education Agency data shows.
Houston ISD, for example, lost 22% of its immigrant students in one year. The state’s largest school district also announced the closure of Las Americas Newcomer School, an alternative campus serving new arrivals to the U.S., in the 2025-26 school year, citing low enrollment. Officials from the district did not respond to a request for comment.
The loss of students due to “inhumane immigration enforcement tactics” will result in a decline in civic engagement, less cultural and social diversity in schools, and damage to the state’s economy and workforce, said Paige Duggins-Clay, the chief legal analyst for the nonprofit Intercultural Development Research Association.
“In addition to just losing the student themselves and what they represent in terms of funding, they really are so much more. They are wonderful human beings, worthy of education and worthy of being in a community,” Duggins-Clay said. “We are, I think, alienating and isolating a really valuable part of our community.”
Overall, the number of students in Texas public schools dropped by approximately 1.4% last year — their first non-pandemic statewide enrollment decline in nearly 40 years, according to analysis from policy research group Texas 2036. The state’s schools lost more than 76,600 students, most of whom were Hispanic and emergent bilingual students.
Marguerite Roza, the director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, said increased immigration was offsetting the declining birth rate for some districts in Texas, but that appears to no longer be the case. While the state’s fertility rate is higher than the national average, Census data shows it has fallen steadily for nearly two decades, mirroring national trends.
Bob Templeton, who studies Texas’ education demographics, told lawmakers in May that enrollment could drop by roughly 500,000 students in the next four to five years. More than 5,460,000 children are enrolled in public schools and charter networks as of the 2025-26 year. Enrollment data for this school year is not yet available as the state measures that on a single day in October.
Under the Plyer v. Doe U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1982, K-12 schools are required to provide a free education to children regardless of their immigration status.
Alday, whose group works across Texas, said it’s important for immigrant children to attend school so they can learn how to read and write in English. However, she said the increase in ICE arrests make many families afraid to send their children to class, which hinders their ability to develop those skills.
“That’s not what this country has been,” Alday said. “As complicated as this country’s history has been, immigrants have been able to contribute, even in Texas. We’re taking every opportunity from these students and their families.”
A few urban Texas school districts reported that their immigrant student populations bucked broader statewide trends and continue to increase.
The San Antonio-based Northside school district, for example, reported a 9% increase in immigrant students last school year.
Ericka Dillon, Northside ISD’s director of bilingual and ESL education, said several factors led to the increase, including a surge in Afghan resettlement and migration from Venezuela.
Dillon said the state’s fourth largest school district also has multiple initiatives to welcome and support immigrant students, including expansion of English as a Second Language, dual language and newcomer support programs.
“Northside ISD is proud to be a welcoming, high-quality public education system that serves families from all over the world who choose to make San Antonio their home,” Dillon said in a statement. “The growth … reflects both broader global resettlement patterns and Northside ISD’s reputation as a supportive, resource-rich community for diverse families.”
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This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.