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Undocumented children will no longer qualify for federally funded preschool through the Head Start program under a major policy shift the Trump administration announced Thursday.
In a news release, the Department of Health and Human Services said it was rescinding a nearly 30-year-old interpretation of federal law issued under President Bill Clinton that allowed undocumented immigrants to access certain programs because they were not considered “federal public benefits.”
The change is part of President Donald Trump’s broader anti-immigrant agenda. He has sought to end birthright citizenship, ramped up immigration enforcement and deportations, removed temporary legal status from immigrants from certain particularly dangerous countries, withheld funding for English learners, and threatened to punish states that offer in-state tuition to undocumented college students.
Administration officials have said they hope many immigrants will “self-deport” if the United States makes life here more uncomfortable. Health and Human Services leaders cast the change as a way to protect benefits for Americans.
“For too long, the government has diverted hardworking Americans’ tax dollars to incentivize illegal immigration,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a press release. “Today’s action changes that — it restores integrity to federal social programs, enforces the rule of law, and protects vital resources for the American people.”
Early childhood education advocates, meanwhile, condemned the change as violating both the spirit and the letter of the law that authorized Head Start.
“This decision undermines the fundamental commitment that the country has made to children,” Yasmina Vinci, the executive director of the National Head Start Association, a nonprofit that represents Head Start staff and families, said in a written statement. “Head Start programs strive to make every child feel welcome, safe, and supported, and reject the characterization of any child as ‘illegal.’”
The change is also at odds with how the Supreme Court has treated K-12 education. In the landmark Plyler v. Doe decision from 1982, the justices ruled that children have a right to a free public education regardless of immigration status.
Head Start will now be considered a public benefit, the Trump administration said, because it offers services that are similar to welfare. Officials said the change aligns with Trump’s executive orders, including a February order titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders.”
“While Head Start provides for school readiness, it also provides low-income children and their families with ‘health, educational, nutritional, and social and other services, that are determined based on family needs assessment, to be necessary,’” federal officials wrote in a notice announcing the change. “Further, it may serve as child care for parents of young children.”
In its press release, Health and Human Services officials said Head Start will be “reserved for American citizens from now on.”
A spokesperson for the Administration for Children and Families clarified that Head Start programs would determine eligibility based on the immigration status of the child, similar to how the Office of Child Care determines eligibility for child care.
To be eligible for Head Start, children would need to be a U.S. citizen or a “qualified” immigrant under federal law. That includes legal permanent residents, children who’ve been granted asylum, refugees, and children with humanitarian parole. The department plans to issue guidance for Head Start based on the new interpretation, the spokesperson said.
In its statement, the National Head Start Association said providers were alarmed that programs would have to check the citizenship or immigration status of children before they could enroll. The law that governs Head Start has never required documentation of immigration status as a condition to enroll, the organization said, and “attempts to impose such a requirement threaten to create fear and confusion among all families.”
The latest version of the law governing who is eligible for Head Start says nothing about immigration status, but it does say that the program can use federal funds to train staff, counsel children, and provide other services that are “necessary to address the challenges of children from immigrant, refugee, and asylee families, homeless children, children in foster care, limited English proficient children, children of migrant or seasonal farmworker families, [and] children from families in crisis.”
The law says that children who are experiencing homelessness or whose families have incomes below the federal poverty line qualify.
This is not the first attempt to roll back educational rights for immigrant children and families. A number of Republican state legislators have sought to advance legislation that would limit enrollment for immigrant children or track their immigration status in ways that could intimidate families. So far, none has been successful. Meanwhile, the author of a brief from the conservative Heritage Foundation that called on states to charge undocumented children tuition to attend public school now works in the Education Department.
Head Start provided preschool to over 544,000 children from low-income families, according to the latest federal data from the 2022-23 school year, while Early Head Start served more than 186,000 infants, toddlers, and expectant parents.
The program, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, has reached 40 million children but has recently faced a number of challenges, from federal staff layoffs to threats of eliminating the program.
Federal officials estimated that this change would free up $374 million a year for U.S. citizens and qualified immigrants to access Head Start, which represents about 3% of the program’s annual budget in recent years.
Federal officials said the change would take effect as soon as it is published in the Federal Register. It has not yet been published there, but has been submitted, the Trump administration said. The public will have 30 days to submit comments.
Susan Stamler, executive director of the United Neighborhood Houses, which represents several Head Start providers in New York City, said in a statement that “throwing immigrant children out of Head Start programs” was senseless and cruel.
“Everyone benefits when immigrants have access to the services they need,” she said.
Chalkbeat New York reporter Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed reporting.
Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.
