Dramatic increases in immigration arrests could be hurting students in the classroom, including U.S. citizen students from Spanish-speaking households.

A study released Monday as a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research uses test score data from a large countywide school district in Florida and immigration arrest data to track the impact of increased enforcement after President Donald Trump took office. Study authors David Figlio and Umut Özek found modest but noticeable declines in spring test scores compared with recent years.

The test score declines didn’t just affect foreign-born students. The effect, which was concentrated in high-poverty schools and among students who were already struggling, was similar for Spanish-speaking immigrant and U.S. citizen students.

That’s “compelling evidence” that students are affected by being part of a community that’s subject to more scrutiny and arrests, regardless of their own or their parents’ immigration status, said Figlio, a University of Rochester economist.

Florida students take state standardized tests three times a year, allowing researchers to see how students were doing before and after immigration enforcement increased under the Trump administration. The analysis found that each percentage point increase in immigration enforcement intensity reduced Spanish-speaking students’ scores on state tests by an amount equivalent to about 10 to 15 points on the SAT.

This decrease accounted for about 10% of the average test score gap between English- and Spanish-speaking students in the district, the study found. The study does not name the district; researchers often grant anonymity to districts and organizations in exchange for data access.

Higher-performing Latino and Spanish-speaking students largely maintained their scores when compared with peers from previous years, but lower-performing students did not.

“This is not turning a kid who was knocking it out of the park into a kid who is struggling academically, but it does appear to be a drag on kids who were already struggling,” Figlio said.

Read the full article about the link between immigration enforcement and test scores by Erica Meltzer at Chalkbeat.