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TRUMP AND KENNEDY THROW HEAD START INTO REVERSE  
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Mark Kreidler
July 17, 2025
Capital & Main
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_ How the administration seeks to use the venerable children’s care
program as an anti-immigrant weapon. _

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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
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to society for every dollar invested. In California, Head Start
serves more than 73,000 kids
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nearly 9,000 in Los Angeles County alone
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The program touches the lives of an estimated 833,000 children
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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
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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
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“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
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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
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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
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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.”

_Copyright 2025 Capital & Main_

_Mark Kreidler is a California-based writer and broadcaster, and the
author of three books, including Four Days to Glory._

* Head Start
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* Trump
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* Kennedy
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* Immigration
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* right wing attacks
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