Head Start programs across the country were providing summer services to young children when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a surprise notice on July 10 saying that, effective immediately, undocumented students are no longer eligible to enroll in the federal preschool program designed for children from families living in poverty.
The notice—a sharp departure from decades of precedent—reclassifies Head Start and more than a dozen federally funded services as welfare, which makes immigration status a potential barrier to access. But the agency offered no clear guidance, leaving school districts and nonprofit grantees uncertain about how to proceed.
“These Head Start programs are very busy right now, enrolling kids for the fall. What should they do? How do they handle these new restrictions? There is no guidance,” said Joel Ryan, the executive director of the Washington State Association of Head Start and the state’s preschool program.
The association he heads is among a coalition of Head Start associations that sued the Trump administration in April over federal Head Start staff layoffs and office closures, and a delay in disbursement of Head Start funds.
On July 15, the coalition requested an amendment to their complaint to challenge the new Health and Human Services Department directive. On July 20, top legal officials in 20 states and the District of Columbia filed their own lawsuit seeking to halt the new directive.
The federal agency, meanwhile, is currently accepting comments on the notice. In a press release announcing the changes, agency officials said the new policy “ensures that public resources are no longer used to incentivize illegal immigration.”
While some Head Start state associations say operations haven’t changed yet, many school districts and nonprofits are in limbo, unsure how to continue serving families amid a flurry of legal and logistical questions.
Head start grantees navigate confusion over new rules
Head Start has traditionally worked as an early education program, meaning immigration status has not been a consideration in eligibility, experts said.
The 1996 welfare overhaul, officially known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 restricts eligibility for immigrants to receive some public benefits, though with some exceptions.
The Trump administration’s July notice reverses decisions made under President Bill Clinton’s administration, arguing that more federal programs, such as Head Start, fall under the law’s definition of “federal public benefits,” and so legal immigration status can be an eligibility requirement.
But school districts that serve as local Head Start grantees don’t collect immigration status information from students due to the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plyler v. Doe, which protects undocumented students’ rights to a free, public education. While the federal notice says nonprofit grantees are not required to verify immigration status, some experts say the new language will pressure them to comply.
The Trump administration argues it is respecting the Plyler decision because it does not classify Head Start as part of a basic public education, which undocumented students have a right to access. Since Trump’s re-election last year, at least six states have introduced measures to undermine the Plyler decision, though most failed.
The federal notice on Head Start said the new policy took effect immediately. But leaders of Florida and Massachusetts Head Start state associations said grantees in these states are operating under pre-existing policy and have made no changes to their enrollment process as of now. They are awaiting clear guidance from the federal agency.
Still, uncertainty looms: Will grantees be required to retroactively verify eligibility? How should they approach the enrollment of siblings with mixed statuses? And how would immigration information even be collected, processed, and protected?
Beyond logistics, some grantees say the bigger question is how to keep programs welcoming.
“There’s no good reason to make it harder for any child to have access to life changing opportunities such as the program like Head Start,” said Wanda Minick, the executive director of the Florida Head Start Association.
Fears over declining early education enrollment grow
Head Start grantees say the new restrictions could undermine not just access to preschool, but the broader stability of programs serving vulnerable communities.
In recent years, large urban school districts in Texas have shifted from running costly preschool programs to Head Start models, said Esmeralda Alday, the senior director of programs and impact for the advocacy group ImmSchools. As a result, funding for full-time employees that serve all students, not just immigrant students, is tied to Head Start enrollment and average daily attendance.
“How are we going to pay for teachers and support staff and our resources for these classrooms? It’s going to come out of local budgets that are based on enrollment, and here we are undercutting enrollment with these scare tactics,” Alday said.
Alday and Ryan, with the Washington State Head Start Association, share the concern over possible declines in Head Start enrollment from families legally eligible for the program, such as immigrant families here with legal residency.
Families may fear policies changing that would jeopardize their legal status if they enroll their children in Head Start now, Ryan added.
Alday added that fear in enrolling children in Head Start programs may extend to fear in enrolling older children in K-12 schools as well.
And declines in Head Start enrollment, either due to ineligibility or families choosing to opt out in an abundance of caution, could harm all students’ access to the program.
“It’ll give the administration an opportunity to try to go after programs for being under-enrolled, which they have the power to do, and try to recapture funding,” Ryan said. “If they try to start recapturing money, that’s going to impact everybody.”
