Maryland Hispanic Student Enrollment Declines Amid Immigration Fears

Hispanic enrollment in Maryland public schools began to decline during the last school year after growing at an average rate of 4.7% a year since pandemic-era lows, according to state data finalized earlier this summer.

As classes resume this fall, parents, teachers and other community members reflected on how immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump has cast a shadow over immigrant and Latino families and their public school students. With immigration arrests taking place just outside their doors and immigrant parents being detained on their way to work, fewer a Latino students are showing up in class.

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Maryland’s overall enrollment also fell. But Hispanic enrollment declined for the first time in years despite continued robust growth in the state’s Hispanic population, a shift that stood out among Maryland’s major racial groups. White and Black student enrollment declined consistently from the 2021-22 school year through last school year, at rates never deviating more than 0.83 points, according to Maryland State Department of Education data released in June.

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Other statistics have shown a similar turn for the state’s Latino K-12 public school students. The graduation rate fell 4.4% from the 2023-24 to 2024-25 school years among Hispanic students and 5.5% for English learners, while the overall rate fell just 1.2%, according to data released in January.

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In the last year of Biden’s presidency, there were around 1,300 arrests by immigration enforcement, according to data from the Deportation Data Project. In the first year of Trump’s second term, that number nearly tripled to almost 4,700, forcing state and county school officials to reckon with the need to be ready to respond to enforcement in their communities.

State officials in January said that’s a reason behind the decline in 2025 Hispanic graduates, according to reporting by The Baltimore Banner. {snip}

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At school international enrollment offices, “numbers are way down in unprecedented levels,” according de Benitez, particularly in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties where more than half the state’s roughly 210,000 Hispanic students attend school.

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Of Maryland schools with at least 500 Hispanic students, 12 of the 20 sharpest declines in Hispanic student enrollment last school year occurred in Montgomery County, with decreases ranging from 6 to 11%, according to data from the state education department. Hispanic enrollment fell by an average of more than 3% across Montgomery County public schools.

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