Court Halts Trump Administration Policy Blocking Undocumented Children from Head Start Enrollment

A federal judge on Thursday issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against a directive from the Trump administration banning undocumented children from enrolling in Head Start.  

The ruling came after Head Start associations in multiple states sued over the Trump change from this spring.  

The directive “results in parents losing childcare, risking missed work, unemployment, forced dropouts, and inability to pay life expenses and support families,” Judge Ricardo Martinez said in his ruling.  

The Hill has reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the early childhood program from low-income families, for comment.  

The ruling accompanied another lawsuit by Democratic attorneys general that challenged the policy and won a temporary injunction in their own states on Thursday.  

Head Start has faced a chaotic situation since the Trump administration’s directive and threats to take away federal money from the program.  

“As Plaintiffs enumerate, this chilling effect results in the immediate harm of childhood education loss, disability support, dual language instruction, and stable learning environments, leading to long-term harms in development,” Martinez wrote in his ruling.  

Those running Head Start programs were encouraged not to take action when the directive first came out due to all the confusion behind it.  

“But I think an important point is that it has a chilling effect, regardless, and that if you’re [an] immigrant family, regardless of what your status is in terms of legal permanent residence, or mixed status family or refugee or whatever it is, you’re legitimately scared of sending your child to an Early Head Start or Head Start program,” Melissa Boteach, chief policy adviser for Zero to Three, previously told The Hill.