Early on Tuesday morning, as parents went to drop off their young children at a bilingual childcare center in north-west Washington DC, they received a message from the administrator saying that unmarked cars were parked directly outside.
Shortly after 8am, federal agents in tactical vests arrested two people unaffiliated with the center, the administrator said.
“While these activities are not connected to our program, we are closely monitoring the situation and taking extra precautions to ensure everyone feels safe entering and leaving the building,” read the message to parents, reviewed by the Guardian.
Foram Mehta, whose son attends the daycare, said she had feared immigration raids there for months, but her fears escalated when Donald Trump sent national guard troops and federal agents to Washington two weeks ago. She said she was concerned about her own safety as a brown person, even though she’s an immigrant in the country lawfully, and also worries for her undocumented neighbors.
She, and other Washington residents, including undocumented parents and caregivers, said they were avoiding parts of the city where federal agents have been reported, and she said her parents who are visiting were “strictly forbidden to go anywhere alone – even down the street to the grocery store”.
In a city already upended by the second Trump administration’s mass firings of government workers, Trump’s decision to take over the city’s police force, send thousands of federal agents to Washington, and ramp up immigration enforcement has left many residents on edge and grappling with how to go about their lives in a city that no longer feels safe. The return to school for most public schools on Monday has cast that in sharp relief.
The White House said on Friday that 719 people had been arrested since the start of the federal crackdown, with many hundreds of them immigrants in the country without legal documents. On the ground, that has looked like federal agents patrolling the streets for undocumented immigrants, setting up checkpoints at busy intersections, stopping delivery drivers and pedestrians, and detaining immigrants at their places of work.
The crackdown has especially been affecting parents and caregivers as the new school year begins. Parents told the Guardian they were scared to send their children to school. Nannies are calling out or asking to be escorted to and from work. Daycares are having to implement new safety precautions.
Once off limits for immigration enforcement and arrests, schools and daycares feel as if they are no longer safe for employees and for children, many Washingtonians said.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. Last week, Ice’s acting director, Todd Lyons, told NBC that Washington parents should not expect to see Ice officers at schools on the first day Monday, but that they may come to school campuses in the future.
“It’s gotten to the point where people are scared to be out and about,” said Amie Santos, a Washington resident who lives near the daycare. “Nothing about this is making DC safer.”
For many Washingtonians, the potential targeting of people and institutions that care for small children has been especially alarming. Multiple people told the Guardian they were struggling with childcare, as so many who work as nannies or in childcare centers are immigrants.
Claire, a mom who asked not to use her real name due to fears about her undocumented nanny, said her caretaker called out of work last week with short notice, saying she was concerned about reports of increased police and arrests.
Homeland Security Investigations agents conduct traffic checks at a checkpoint along 14th Street in north-west Washington DC on 13 August. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP
“She said there’s a very heavy police presence and she’s hearing all of these stories from other nannies and from friends and acquaintances that there are all of these checkpoints,” Claire said. “She said she and her husband are both staying home and not coming into work, either of them.”
Claire gave her the week off and is working to figure out options to make her more comfortable to return to work this week, including offering to pick her up from her home.
The nanny, who has been in the country for almost three decades, has a teenage child, and “she is so concerned about deportation – that something could happen to her and her husband – that she has asked if we would take care of her child if that were to happen”, Claire said.
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Other parents said they were driving their children to the neighboring state of Maryland to meet their nannies who live there, or that their nannies have been staying inside rather than venturing outside, or driving throughout the city rather than walking.
In a neighborhood parents group, a mom on Tuesday shared a document template for parents to fill out and give to their nannies as they escort their children around the city.
“In the event that [NANNY’S NAME] is detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) or any other law enforcement authority, this letter affirms that [CHILD’S NAME] is my child and should be immediately returned to me, [HER/HIS MOTHER/FATHER/PARENT] and legal guardian,” the template reads. “Under no circumstance should [CHILD’S NAME] be taken into government custody or placed in foster care.”
With the new school year beginning in the middle of Trump’s federal takeover, parents are also concerned about what might be happening at schools.
Sebastien Durand, the director of facilities at a public charter school in north-west DC whose role involves student safety, said the school had engaged with families this week before the school year begins.
“It was made clear to us that they are all extremely scared,” he said. “Quite a bit of them were actually asking if we can go back to a pandemic era-type of school where they didn’t have to come to school and we had to provide something remote.”
He said he explained to them that legally they can’t do that, but the school decided to use its own funds to run buses from the closest Metro station to the campus for at least the next two weeks. The school is concerned about attendance, he said, especially with rates still lower than desired since the pandemic.
For children that have already started the school year, the first week has been fraught. Santos’s five-year-old son started kindergarten on Monday at school in north-west DC. On the second day of school, there were unmarked police cars with agents who appeared to be in tactical gear parked in front of the school, she said. That evening, parents were told the school was enhancing security measures and all students, parents and caretakers would be required to wear colored lanyards with photo identification to enter school grounds. The school will also be running a bus for students and caretakers from the Metro to the parking lot.
“As you can imagine, it’s been hard,” Santos said. “We had to talk to our son about what was going on, why there was increased security, the importance of kindness, that not everybody feels safe and welcome.
“With kids going back to school, there are intimidation factors at play,” she added, “and it’s creating an aggressive environment that I don’t think is conducive to learning or to children.”
