Across California, the number of new immigrant students or “newcomers” in their first three years in the U.S. has fallen sharply over the past two years. The drop follows an abrupt decrease in border crossings in early 2025 amid changes in federal immigration policy.
The decline has been particularly pronounced in some large urban districts already reeling from years of enrollment losses. In Oakland Unified, more than 1,300 new students arrived each year from other countries from 2017-18 to 2024-25, with the exception of 2020-21 during the pandemic. In 2025-26, 498 new immigrant students enrolled for their first year.
This school year, only 212 new immigrant students had enrolled for the first time as of Oct. 7. Most of them are elementary students.
“We knew the numbers were going to be low. This is extremely low,” said Nicole Knight, executive director of English language learner and multilingual achievement at Oakland Unified.
The district reduced the number of middle and high schools offering newcomer services and classes due to declining enrollment, Knight said. Last year, the district had newcomer programs at 17 middle and high schools. This year, they have them at six schools. They are mostly serving students in their second or third year of school.
The programs offered some separate classes for newcomers in the first year or two, providing extra help with academic subjects and learning English. Now that there are fewer newcomers, Knight said students are entering mainstream classes sooner.
“That’s a challenge for teachers who don’t feel equipped” to help students just beginning to learn English or those who have missed months or years of schooling in their home countries, Knight said. She said some may not have received training to support these students.
The drop also affects other programs, Knight said. Because districts receive funding based on the number of students enrolled, fewer students means less overall funding. In addition, the new arrival of immigrant students helped keep bilingual immersion classes fully enrolled.
“We’re suffering from declining enrollment, and it does make visible how much newcomers were helping us stay afloat,” she said.
The number of newcomer students dropped in Los Angeles Unified from 20,755 students in 2024-25 to 11,103 students in 2026-27. According to the district, overall district enrollment dropped by 8.3% between fall 2025 and fall 2027, while newcomer enrollment dropped by 46.5% during the same time period.
The numbers are not as stark in some districts, and in fact, some are seeing newcomers resettle in their areas from other districts or states.
In San Juan Unified, near Sacramento, the number of newcomer students decreased by about 13.6%, from 974 in 2025-26 to 842 this school year, according to the district. Students in the district come from many different countries and speak at least 70 languages, including Spanish, Persian, Russian, Pashto, Ukrainian, Arabic, Armenian, Romanian, Vietnamese and Punjabi.
The decline may be less pronounced in the district because many families arrived as refugees or through the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program for Afghan nationals who worked with the U.S. government, rather than crossing the border, said Raj Rai, a spokesperson for the district. In addition, she said, “We continue to see some newcomer families relocate to our district from other states to join relatives and established communities.”
“Newcomer programs and support services have not been impacted,” Rai said. She said the district continues to offer academic, language and social-emotional support, and recently launched an English Club that meets on Saturdays to help newcomers with their English language skills.
The statewide number of newcomer students for 2026-27 is not yet available. Enrollment fell from a record high number of 236,958 in 2024-25 to 228,780 in 2025-26. The majority of those students likely entered before the Trump administration’s changes to immigration policies, and are in their second or third year in school.
As those students finish up their first three years of school and are no longer considered “newcomers,” the population is expected to decline much more.
“We’re about to reach a cliff where we’ll have had a couple years without significant entries,” said Sam Finn, executive director of the California Newcomer Network, which provides resources and support for newcomer programs statewide.
As schools anticipate losing more students in the coming years, program leaders are trying to figure out how to keep the curriculum and knowledge learned in case the numbers of new immigrants increase again in the future.
“It was a huge effort to build out all of these programs and expertise and curriculum, and a real labor of love, and we don’t want all of that to go away, and then we don’t have access to that when we need it again,” Knight said.