A federal judge has issued a nationwide block on a Trump administration directive that prevented children in the U.S. illegally from enrolling in Head Start, a federally funded preschool program.
Head Start associations in several states filed suit against the policy change by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The ruling by a federal judge in Washington state on Thursday comes after a coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys general succeeded in temporarily halting the policy’s implementation within their own states.
With the new ruling, the policy is now on hold across the country.
Andrew Nixon, an HHS spokesman, said the agency disagrees with the court’s decisions and is evaluating next steps.
In July, HHS proposed a rule reinterpretation to disallow immigrants in the country illegally from receiving certain social services, including Head Start and other community health programs. Those programs were previously made accessible by a federal law in President Bill Clinton’s administration.
The change was part of a broader Trump administration effort to exclude people without legal status from accessing social services by making changes to federal eligibility rules.
Those immigrants would be barred from accessing the impacted programs because they would be reclassified as federal public benefits — an alteration that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said could disincentivize illegal immigration. People in the country unlawfully are largely ineligible for federal public benefits, which include food stamps and student loans.
In issuing the preliminary injunction Thursday, Judge Ricardo Martinez said he saw no reason for a change to the interpretation of eligibility that has been in place for decades. He said it threatened access to services that families rely upon.
“It also results in parents losing childcare, risking missed work, unemployment, forced dropouts, and inability to pay life expenses and support families,” Martinez wrote.
The policy changes threatened to lead to the disenrollment of more than 100,000 children from Head Start programs, which have historically played a large role in supporting immigrant families, said Ming-Qi Chu, one of the American Civil Liberties Union attorneys representing the plaintiffs.
“This happened very abruptly with no transition plan in place,” Chu said.
Head Start providers weren’t previously required to screen applicants’ immigration status, which the plaintiffs argued would sow distrust with the program and ultimately lead to a decline in enrollment. Ambiguity over whose immigration status would be checked — a caregiver’s, a child’s or another household member’s status — also could create confusion for families, the plaintiffs said.
Head Start was started six decades ago as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. Nationwide, its centers serve more than half a million low-income children.
The early childhood education program has weathered waves of instability and disruptions to its services. Federal grant freezes and subsequent temporary closures of some Head Start programs started just a few weeks into President Donald Trump’s second term earlier this year.
