Adriana Lorenzo has stopped letting children play outside after 10 a.m. at the child-care program she runs from her Boyle Heights home. That’s the time she’s heard ICE agents start knocking on doors.
She’s added extra locks to the outside gate, canceled field trips to the park and library and reassured frantic parents that she won’t let federal agents through her door. She has also made back-up plans for the possibility that a parent will be detained by federal agents while their child is in her care.
Lorenzo collected emergency contact information for “safe” people who can pick up each of the 10 children, ages 6 months to 12 years, if their parents aren’t able. She will wait 45 minutes after pick-up time, then call the back-up contacts. For the parent who said she didn’t have anyone she trusted, Lorenzo offered to keep the children herself.
“I told her, don’t worry. If anything was to happen, I’ll keep the kids here safe until I’m able to contact you or you’re able to contact me, and we’ll go from there,” she said.
She sees worry in the eyes of the children. As the day gets late, the school-aged kids sometimes stare at the door, waiting for their mothers to arrive. Last week, one of them asked Lorenzo, “What if they picked her up? What are we gonna do?”
Among child-care providers in Los Angeles, whose job is to protect the youngest and most vulnerable residents of Los Angeles, the fear has become palpable. Now, in addition to worries for their own safety and those of their loved ones, they are grappling with one of the most difficult questions of their professional lives: How will they keep the children safe amid the consequences of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids?
Since June 6, when ICE began widespread raids throughout Los Angeles, fear has infiltrated nearly every facet of life, as masked federal agents have converged on Home Depot parking lots, knocked on the doors of private homes, swept away street vendors, and detained people at a swap meet and gas station. The delicate child-care industry is no exception.
About half of in-home child-care providers and a quarter of the teaching staff at larger child-care centers in Los Angeles are immigrants, according to the UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Child Care Employment.
A naturalized citizen, Lorenzo carries a passport with her at all times, just in case she gets stopped.
“What if I go to the store, and they don’t ask questions and they just take me?” she said. “It’s affecting me mentally and even physically.” She worries about her business as attendance drops; several parents are keeping their children home.
Zoila Carolina Toma, who runs a family child-care program out of her home in Lakewood, would normally have 14 children. But that number is down to six, and the phones have fallen silent. Prospective parents have stopped calling to inquire about openings.
“That’s never been my case. I’ve always been at full capacity,” she said.
Toma said the remaining six children are all citizens. Still, she’s asked their parents to provide the children’s birth certificates for the first time. She keeps them locked in a filing cabinet at home, with copies available on her phone — just in case they get stopped by agents on the way to a field trip to the park, pool or bowling alley this summer.
Preparing for a knock on the door
Public Counsel, a nonprofit offering free legal assistance, receives several requests each week to run “Know Your Rights” trainings for child-care providers and other small businesses in the L.A. area. Everyone has constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizures regardless of immigration status, said Public Counsel attorney Ritu Mahajan. She advises child-care providers not to open the door if immigration agents show up at their private child-care facilities. If agents have a warrant, they can slip it underneath.
“But what we’re seeing in the news and all around is that there are times where the ICE agents are not following the law, and that’s obviously a huge problem,” said Mahajan. Some people have been arrested for requesting a warrant, she said. “If they’re going to barge their way in, don’t put yourself in the middle and don’t get hurt, but document what’s happening.”
Sarah Soriano, executive director of Young Horizons Child Development Centers, which has five locations in Long Beach, said she has placed signs on all of the doors that say “Private.” She’s helped convene caregivers throughout the region to prepare, but some scenarios are impossible to plan for.
“There’s not a response to what do you do if they try to take a child,” she said. One frightened staff member asked her if she should physically hold onto a child if ICE tried to take them, or if she would be arrested. “The absolute terror that they want to instill, they’re succeeding,” said Soriano.
The institutions and associations that represent child-care providers and centers have been unusually mum, in an effort to keep them out of the spotlight. Several declined to be interviewed. Some providers themselves have gone underground. Vision y Compromiso, a California nonprofit that works with caregivers, has been calling providers to offer assistance. But many have stopped answering the phone.
Nannies sleeping at their employers’ houses
Susan, an immigrant from Guatemala, has been a nanny for 18 years. She has a car but has chosen to stay home some days recently because she’s terrified to leave the house.
“I also have three kids. If I go over there, I don’t know if I’ll be able to return to them,” Susan said. She requested that her full name not be used to protect her.
When she has gone to work, she’s upended her normal schedule. Nannies typically bring children to public parks, where they meet up with other nannies while their young charges play.
“Kids want to go out, they want to run, they want to go to the park, they want to walk.” But park time is too dangerous, and she is keeping the 2.5-year-old she cares for at home. “It’s hard to be able to navigate all her energy and explain to her that she has to stay home.”
Their go-to park — normally packed with nannies and children — is empty, she said.
Another nanny in South Pasadena who asked to remain anonymous said she’s also been staying home instead of going to the park or library.
“I never expected to experience this in this country,” she said. “It feels like we’re animals and they’re hunting us.”
While Susan’s employer has offered paid leave during the raids, many of her friends have not been so lucky, she said.
“They are sleeping in their bosses’ houses from Monday to Friday and going with their families Saturday and Sunday,” Susan said. “So it’s very sad.”
Hand in Hand: The Domestic Employers Network, a national nonprofit made up of household employers, recommends offering workers paid leave right now so that they can shelter at home. If paid leave is not possible, Hand in Hand recommends employers help workers with a safe transportation plan by offering them a ride to work, pay for a taxi, or by accompanying them to a bus stop.
When a parent disappears
Foundation for Early Childhood Education, a Head Start provider with 20 centers in East L.A. that cares for about 500 children, said federal agents have been spotted near several of their centers based at housing projects. Attendance is down across the board. Head Start, a federally funded program, accepts children based on family income and is not required to check for immigration status.
“Parents want to keep their kids close. They’re afraid to send them anywhere because they’ve heard about ICE coming on school campuses,” said Jocelyn Tucker, the organization’s assistant director.
Teachers — some of whom have been at the program for 30 years — have also been panicked, she said, especially as rumors swirled recently that ICE was at a Head Start center at El Monte City School District. Luis Bautista, executive director of the Los Angeles County Office of Education Head Start and Early Learning Division, did not confirm the El Monte sighting but said federal agents had been near several Head Start centers close to dismissal time.
Foundation’s centers are all equipped with locked entrances, and staffers must buzz visitors into the gate. If ICE comes knocking, Tucker said the teachers know to tell agents to “hold on. I’m going to call the director.”
But last week, Tucker said she received an email with the subject line, “ICE picked up a father.”
“My heart just sank in my stomach. I got nauseous,” she said. “I felt like this was my child, and I just started crying. It’s just so tragic.”
The father was sent to a detention facility in Texas, and Head Start has been trying to provide resources to the mother and child, a 4-year-old who was just diagnosed with autism, including grocery assistance and a referral for mental health services.
“We just kind of inundate her with support, but her son wants his dad back,” said Tucker. “You hear about this happening in another country, and you think that would never happen in America. But now it’s happening.”
Times audience engagement editor Kate Sequeira contributed to this article.
This article is part of The Times’ early childhood education initiative, focusing on the learning and development of California children from birth to age 5. For more information about the initiative and its philanthropic funders, go to latimes.com/earlyed.
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