Bridgeport schools link student enrollment drop partly to ICE fears

BRIDGEPORT — Increased immigration enforcement is playing a role in the nearly 700-student decline in enrollment in the Bridgeport Public Schools over the past year, according to a school district official. 

The school district went from roughly 20,000 students in 2024-25 to just over 19,300 this school year, said Peter Karaffa, the district’s chief information officer, at a meeting of the board’s ad hoc Facilities Master Plan Committee on April 30. 

Part of the reason for the drop in student enrollment is the current state of immigration and customs enforcement in the United States, Karaffa said. With the stepped-up enforcement, some families are afraid of enrolling their children in school, while others are moving and returning to their home country, he said. 

As President Donald Trump’s administration cracks down on immigration enforcement, arrests and deportations have increased in Connecticut and nationwide. CT Insider previously reported that ICE made more arrests in Connecticut during the first seven months of the Trump administration than the previous 16 months under former president Joe Biden. 

In 2025, there were 937 ICE arrests in Connecticut, according to the Deportation Data Project. Out of that total, 33 took place in Bridgeport. For arrests of children under 18, none of the 24 in Connecticut happened in Bridgeport. 

When a student leaves the Bridgeport school district, Karaffa said he is able to see their “exit code,” which tells him the reason why the student is departing and where they are going. 

“No one expected with ICE we were going to have a drop of somewhere around 700 children,” Karaffa said. “I would have never thought that. … I’m not saying it was all ICE, but I do know that there’s families who will not register because they were afraid, so I know a lot of people who did go back to their home country.” 

Data from the state Department of Education shows the number of students who are English language learners has dropped by nearly 300 this school year. Roughly 6,200 English language learners were enrolled in Bridgeport Public Schools in 2024-25. Now that number is closer to 5,900. 

Karaffa stressed at the committee meeting that ICE agents have not come into any Bridgeport school buildings, but one school board member pointed out that “it is a factor in our city.” 

“We have had ICE in Bridgeport, maybe not in the school. … I know because I know people who have been at the courthouses helping protect people at those courthouses. … It is a factor that is affecting people’s consciousness and behavior,” Robert Traber said. 

The district is prepared if ICE agents were to go to one of its schools, he said. In January 2025, Bridgeport Public Schools announced guidelines on how it would protect undocumented students from federal immigration raids, including that that no ICE agents or government officials would be allowed to enter school buildings or buses, or attend school events without prior written authorization from the superintendent. 

“It hasn’t come up, thank God,” Traber said. 

Students leave the district for other reasons, too, including in-state transfers, out-of-state moves and charter school enrollment, the district’s communications department told the Connecticut Post. Plus, Karaffa said at the meeting that the city has a variety of options when it comes to schooling.

“We do have a lot of charter schools, we have a lot of pre-K programs that are around,” he said. “We also have, when you’re looking at it, private and parochial.”

However, the district’s mobility rate is high, he said, meaning students move in and out of schools a number of times. 

“We have students who move three, four, five and even six times during the school year to different schools,” Karaffa said, and “from (an) educational standpoint, that’s not good.” 

Ultimately, Karaffa said the district needs to do a better job of intervening when a child is moving from school to school a number of times. And the district should be prepared for more students, he said. 

“There’s always a case where we can get an influx because something happens … so we’ve got to be prepared to where we can handle that,” he said. 

This story includes prior reporting by Joshua Eaton and Annie Xia.