Lately Amy Dudgeon has been hearing from immigrant families in Louisiana who say they’re scared to leave their homes. Many have young children who worry their parents will be gone when they get home from school.

Dudgeon is president of the New Neighbor Project, a group she founded during the pandemic when she saw a need for accessible English classes for immigrant families in the greater New Orleans area. The group offers online and in-person English and citizenship classes and works with immigrants to apply for scholarships that can create a pathway to citizenship.

But starting in January, Dudgeon said she began to see a decrease in the number of Spanish-speaking students attending the group’s classes. She blames a growing climate of fear stemming from the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration. This month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that immigration agents can for now stop people based on their race or language.

“We’ve had a big shift in who’s attending our classes,” Dudgeon said. “Now people are more focused on staying close to home.”

Dudgeon has worked with immigrant families since she teaching English learner classes as a student at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. Many of her students had advanced degrees in their home countries but struggled to find good jobs in the U.S. due to a language barrier.

She eventually earned a law degree and worked as an immigration lawyer for more than three decades, while also coordinating English language services for the nonprofit Catholic Charities.

The Times-Picayune recently spoke with Dudgeon about how the federal government’s policies are affecting students from immigrant families and what can be done to support them.

“Community is so important right now,” she said. “Children need people they feel safe around.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What changes have you noticed with the families that your group serves?

We’re seeing a decline in enrollment of Spanish-speaking families in our English learning classes. Families are scared to leave their homes because there’s a not-small chance they could get detained, and kids are scared they’re never going to see their parents again. That’s traumatic for them.

I’ve also been worried about doing any kind of promotion, like ‘Hey, we have a large group of immigrants here at this class.’ But a lot of people in our classes, including a lot of the kids, are already U.S. citizens, they just need to work on their English a little bit.

How has the immigration crackdown affected students?

What happens with teenagers who don’t speak English and who have this kind of trauma is that they become disillusioned. They tend to not want to go to school, and they just don’t show up. Then they get in trouble. And these kids are also dealing with the risk of getting picked up (by immigration agents).

There have been a lot of recent labor law changes, too. I see a lot of kids, 16, 17 years old, and they’re not getting support at school. They have to go to work, and they drop out of school to do that, and we know what the outcomes are for kids who drop out.

That’s why it’s so important to make sure they have a support system at school, and that the school knows about what’s going on with them.

What are you hearing from the college-age students you work with?

We work with around 30 kids each semester. What we’re hearing from them now is that it’s definitely a different climate.

I know recently there have been questions about international students (having their visas revoked), and they were feeling uncomfortable. They had a lot of questions: Should I carry my passport with me? Should I carry my green card with me? What do I do if I get stopped? Is it safe to go to this neighborhood? Those are the kinds of questions we’re getting.

What do you tell students who are worried about being stopped?

I just tell them that I don’t think they need to carry their green card around — if they have a driver’s license, that works.

But I also tell students to do what makes them feel comfortable. Don’t put yourself in any situation that makes you feel unsafe.

Do you have any advice for teachers about how to support students who may be feeling scared?

I recently talked to some educators about the need to offer online general education classes for these kids, kind of like what schools did during COVID.

What we’ve seen for online classes for (the New Neighbor Project) is that a family will be attending regularly and then not show up for weeks. When they do show back up, they’re dialing in from somewhere like Honduras or El Salvador after being deported. The whole family will be there, and they’re still trying to connect with us.

As far as K-12 goes, I don’t know how schools are going to navigate taking care of these kids when the environment for them is so hostile. I think public schools’ hands are somewhat tied as far as what they’re able to do. All I can really do is offer to have students come take our classes.

What resources do you want families to know about?

We are working with schools in the area to find other solutions. We’ve expanded our online class offerings, and we’re talking with Delgado about options. We still do work with Catholic Charities, Tulane, some of the local universities.

We also work with mental health professionals and the correctional system, and we’ve always tried to make resources available to families. If a family seems like they’re in trouble or they need anything at all, like help finding health insurance, our organization has a group of people who attend our English classes in person and they talk to those families about where we can refer them.