The Department of Health and Human Services has announced that it intends to redefine Head Start as a federal public welfare program, not a public education program, barring access to the program for undocumented immigrants. The change is at odds with the way that the Supreme Court has treated K-12 education since 1982, when it ruled that children have a right to free public education regardless of their immigration status. Historically, Congress has not considered Head Start a welfare program. Experts expect there to be legal challenges that would put a temporary restraining order on the change.
On Monday, July 14, the announcement came into effect after being posted in the federal register. Individual Head Start programs await instructions from the Office of Head Start. Grantees have been provided little information from HHS, causing confusion, chaos and fear.
Katie Hamm, a national expert in early childhood policy, wrote: “HHS issued a notice indicating that they will reinterpret a law from nearly 30 years ago such that the definition of a ‘public benefit’ now includes Head Start and 22 other HHS programs. The Administration’s goal with this change is to prevent children in immigrant families from participating in Head Start. Just like public schools, Head Start has long served all children and supported countless families so that parents can go to work. Head Start is often the first step in a public education journey for young children, and limiting based on immigration status is a terrible and hateful mistake.” Hamm contended that “no child should be disenrolled in Head Start” at the moment, given that the “Head Start Act states that a child who has been determined to meet the eligibility criteria and is participating in a program year is considered to meet the eligibility criteria through the end of the succeeding program year.”
RUTH FRIEDMAN; [email protected]
Friedman was one of the primary staff authors of the 2007 Head Start reauthorization law and a senior advisor on the 2016 overhaul of Head Start regulations. She is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation.
Friedman told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “The Trump Administration is using Head Start as a vehicle to attack immigrants and our public education system. The recent announcement that they will ignore decades of legal precedent and consider Head Start a welfare program and not an education program is just the latest assault. Barring young children from early education hurts all of our kids and creates more chaos and fear in immigrant communities—it is unconscionable.”