This morning I read an article, “Immigration enforcement appears to hurt test scores, and not just for immigrant students: study.“

It devastated me. It’s a look at how the myth of the “self-made individual” is literally harming our children. The core finding is simple but profound: when immigration enforcement intensifies, it doesn’t just hurt undocumented individuals. It hurts an entire community, and yes, that includes white, US-born children (even white male children). Harm doesn’t exist without ripples.

The study shows test scores dropping for Spanish-speaking students (both immigrant and U.S.-born) in high-poverty schools. Why? Because children don’t exist in a vacuum. None of us exist in a vacuum.

Children are part of our social fabric. When that fabric is torn by fear, when parents are afraid to leave the house, when kids watch ICE videos on social media, when a classmate’s family is targeted, the entire community’s well-being and ability to learn suffers.

This is the direct result of a neoliberal, hyper-individualistic ideology that this administration is but a symptom. It’s a worldview that pretends we are isolated atoms with no connections or responsibilities to each other. It ignores the fundamental truth that our fates are linked.

The damage is real and will last for generations.

This isn’t just about immigration policy; it’s about what kind of society we want to be. Do we want to be a society that invests in the well-being of all our children, recognizing that their success is intertwined? Or one that actively inflicts trauma on an entire generation, believing the falsehood that we can harm “others” without hurting ourselves?

The research is clear. This administration’s policies are hurting all our children, US-born or not.

Community is not an abstract concept. Community is the soil from which our well-being grows. We are poisoning that ground, and the consequences will be felt for decades.