When she saw the Trump sign in the yard, Camila knew she would have to watch out.
It was February 2025, and Camila* had shown up at a home in North Texas to meet the new family for whom she would nanny.
The 22-year-old college student doesn’t have legal documentation, but that’s never been an issue. In her experience, many families like to pay their childcare workers in cash. Still, this new family posed an interesting challenge. The interior of the home was filled with more Trump paraphernalia. “Trump everything, everywhere,” Camila says. It turned out the father works for Fox News.
“It was very ironic,” Camila told media. “If I were to say, ‘Hey, this is my legal situation,’ it could have gone one of two ways. Maybe they wouldn’t care, or maybe they would’ve told me to get out. And who knows what would’ve happened then.”
She ultimately decided not to tell them and just focused on her job of caring for their children. The uncomfortable encounter and the “chill” it gave Camila evoke a larger problem.
In the US, immigrant labour, including undocumented workers, has long propped up the childcare, home care and elder care industries. Yet amid the anti-immigrant policy and posture in US President Donald Trump’s second administration, including the threat of “mass deportations”, those ailing industries face new threats that experts say could have a “ripple effect” on millions of Americans.
“People are not showing up for work because they’re concerned about raids happening in their workplace,” said Lori Smetanka, executive director of the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care.
And children, she added, “have been really worried about their parents and whether or not they’re going to be coming home at the end of the day”.
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