The Truth About Immigration That MAGA Doesn’t Acknowledge

Source: The Atlantic, Olga Khazan
Photo: Kena Betancur/AFP/Getty

American families rely on immigrants to take care of their children.

President Donald Trump, and the MAGA movement more broadly, has made two priorities very clear: They want fewer immigrants in America and more babies born to American mothers.

Those goals, however, are at odds. Millions of parents in the United States, native- and foreign-born alike, rely on immigrants to take care of their kids. (My toddler son has only ever been cared for by immigrant women, myself among them.) Immigrants make up at least 21 percent of the child-care workforce—and this may be an undercount. When fewer immigrants are in the American workforce, economic research suggests, women may work less or have fewer babies—possibly both.

In the first half of this year, Trump’s ICE agency made twice as many arrests as it did under the Biden administration during the same period last year. These efforts seem to have created a chilling effect, making many female immigrants scared to show up for work. According to a report from the New America Foundation published earlier this month, the arrests were associated with a loss of about 39,000 foreign-born child-care workers. Meanwhile, 77,000 U.S.-born mothers of kids under 5 dropped out of the workforce.

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About the Author

Olga Khazan is a staff writer at The Atlantic. She is the author of Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change. She has also written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and other publications. She writes a Substack on personality change.

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/2025/12/immigration-pronatalism-trump-vance