Trump and Kennedy Throw Head Start Into Reverse

Candice Williams never had to be convinced of the value of a program like Head Start. She lived it.

Williams is executive director of Family Forward Oregon, a Portland-based collective of parents, caregivers and advocates that pushes for legislative reforms such as paid family leave and affordable child care. Long before that, though, Williams benefitted as a child from Head Start’s comprehensive early education, literacy and nutrition programs for low-income families — one success story in the mostly glowing 60-year history of the federal program.

“My family would not be where it is right now had I not had access to the early literacy programs and early supports from Head Start, which made me fall in love with education,” said Williams, who went on to earn three master’s degrees in education and leadership as a first-generation college student.

Her sentiment is broadly supported by the data. Research begun decades ago and more recently reevaluated indicates that making early investments in childhood education, as Head Start does, yields major economic returns — in the range of $7 to $12 back to society for every dollar invested. In California, Head Start serves more than 73,000 kids, nearly 9,000 in Los Angeles County alone. The program touches the lives of an estimated 833,000 children across the country annually.

Thus, Williams can’t quite figure out why President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are so intent on killing it.

“The fact that they’re coming for something like Head Start, which is loved and supported across political lines, should have all of us screaming from the rooftops,” Williams said. “In any other political moment, this would have gotten weeks and weeks of national attention.”

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The Trump administration’s latest salvo landed last week, with Kennedy attempting to prevent Head Start from continuing to provide resources for all low-income children in America. Its effects would be real — and potentially toxic.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ notice would change the longstanding interpretation of a nearly 30-year-old law and declare Head Start’s services off-limits to immigrant families — “illegal aliens,” in the words of the HHS statement.

That would mean a denial of service to certain children in the U.S. from birth to age 5 in such areas as early learning and development, nutrition and health, and family well-being. Head Start, which includes preschool services, is free to low-income families.

“This is a misguided and hateful action targeting immigrant children,” said Clarissa Doutherd, executive director of the advocacy group Parent Voices Oakland, which says more than 400 children are enrolled in the city of Oakland’s Head Start program. “It is a gross abuse of power that will negatively impact generations of families. This goes against why the Head Start program was founded — to create a safe and nurturing environment for children.”

Like some other Trump policy announcements, this one was not accompanied by instructions on how it should be carried out, leaving its implementation an open question. Since most of the nonprofits, school districts and faith-based organizations that deliver Head Start’s early education and nutrition programs do not collect or keep immigration information, it’s unclear how they’re supposed to weed out and turn away undocumented children — or if that’s even the point.

“We’re not sure what happens if the child was born in the U.S. but one of his parents isn’t documented,” said one program worker in Northern California, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution against their organization. “Are they using the kids to go after the parents?”

The HHS announcement said it was formally rescinding a 1998 reconciliation act that extended Head Start programs and some other federal benefits to all families regardless of their immigration status — and the agency said it would now require documentation of that status. “For too long, the government has diverted hardworking Americans’ tax dollars to incentivize illegal immigration,” Kennedy said. “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.”

In serving nearly 40 million children and their families since its creation in 1965, Head Start has never required documentation of immigration status, the National Head Start Association said in a statement. “This decision undermines the fundamental commitment that the country has made to children and disregards decades of evidence that Head Start is essential to our collective future,” said NHSA executive director Yasmina Vinci.

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Candice Williams said she and others in Family Forward Oregon’s vast network of caregivers and nonprofits, who work with an estimated 12,000 Oregon children who receive services through Head Start, aren’t sure what’s next. Kennedy’s intention is for the anti-immigrant HHS interpretation to take effect immediately — but again, there are no details as to how, and Williams said the questions currently outnumber the answers. Fear, she said, is running high.

In the meantime, her organization will fight. Both Family Forward Oregon and Parent Voices Oakland, along with the Head Start associations of four states, earlier this year joined a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union alleging that the Trump administration is trying to dismantle Head Start by “gutting the program of staff and resources” and delaying funding, among other things.

On Wednesday, the ACLU amended the suit to include Kennedy’s latest directive regarding immigration status, challenging the HHS reinterpretation as unlawful and unconstitutional. “The administration’s staff cuts, delays, and immigration directive threaten the vital early education, health, and social services that more than 800,000 children and families rely on each year,” the ACLU said in a statement.

Workers on the ground, meanwhile, say there’s a ripple effect from the actions. If Head Start funding is ultimately delayed or denied, local child care programs’ budgets could take such a hit that they either fold entirely or severely curtail their services — and that’s to all families, not just the ones potentially affected by the HHS policy shifts, including the immigration question.

“We are determined to use every tool that we have to fight this — including for children whose parents were born in another country,” Parent Voices Oakland’s Doutherd said. Added Williams, “We do not operate from a place of fear.”

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