Child-care providers brace for a painful scenario: What if ICE comes knocking?

Adriana Lorenzo has stopped letting children play outside after 10 a.m.at the child-care program she runs from her Boyle Heights home.

That’s the time she’s heard ICE agents start knocking on doors.She’s added extra locks to the outside gate, canceled field trips to the park and library and reassured frantic parents that she won’t let federal agents through her door.She has also made back-up plans for the possibility that a parent will be detained by federal agents while their child is in her care.Lorenzo collected emergency contact information for “safe” people who can pick up each of the 10 children, ages 6 months to 12 years, if their parents aren’t able.

She will wait 45 minutes after pick-up time, then call the back-up contacts.For the parent who said she didn’t have anyone she trusted, Lorenzo offered to keep the children herself.

“I told her, don’t worry.If anything was to happen, I’ll keep the kids here safe until I’m able to contact you or you’re able to contact me, and we’ll go from there,” she said.She sees worry in the eyes of the children.

As the day gets late, the school-aged kids sometimes stare at the door, waiting for their mothers to arrive.Last week, one of them asked Lorenzo, “What if they picked her up? What are we gonna do?”Engage with our community-funded journalism as we delve into child care, transitional kindergarten, health and other issues affecting children from birth through age 5.Among child-care providers in Los Angeles, whose job is to protect the youngest and most vulnerable residents of Los Angeles, the fear has become palpable.

Now, in addition to worries for their own safety and those of their loved ones, they are grappling with one of the most difficult questions of their professional lives: How will they keep the children safe amid the consequences of U.S.Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids?Since June 6, when ICE began widespread raids throughout Los Angeles, fear has infiltrated ne...