By Rachel Wilensky, Karla Coleman-Castillo, and Wendy Cervantes
In the four months since inauguration, the Trump Administration has leveled a staggering number of threats on social programs–from executive orders to funding freezes and staff layoffs–that are already harming child care and early learning programs. These assaults on social infrastructure and aggressive moves to reshape the government are accompanied by increasing attacks on immigrants, many of whom rely on or provide child care and early education (CCEE). With a quarter of children under six coming from immigrant families and almost 20 percent of child care providers and early educators being immigrants, anti-immigrant policies directly affect families with young children and CCEE programs.1 This resource will briefly summarize the available data on immigrant children, families, and child care providers and early educators and examine the impact of the Trump Administration’s anti-immigrant policies on CCEE to date.
This statement can be attributed to Wendy Chun-Hoon, executive director and president of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP).
Washington, D.C., June 5, 2025—Late last week, President Trump sent details of his 2026 budget proposal to Congress. This document makes no secret of Trump’s disregard for children, families, immigrants, and workers, all of whom would be grievously harmed by his proposal.
Trump’s proposed budget slashes $12 billion from federal education programs; $5 billion from agriculture programs and initiatives; $4.6 billion from the Department of Labor (representing more than a third of the department’s total budget); and more than $60 billion from health, housing, and community development work, including $1.1 billion from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The proposed budget would also more than double funding for the Department of Homeland Security, in order to fund mass deportation and family separations.
This draconian budget would harm millions of people who are already forced to live on the margins. Among those who would be adversely affected by these cuts are students with low incomes trying to earn a degree, people who rely on housing choice vouchers or public housing for shelter, immigrant families who will be driven even further into the shadows, workers seeking to unionize for fair wages, and working families who need affordable child care.
It’s also notable that funding cuts to the IRS will greatly reduce the agency’s capacity to ensure that the wealthiest are paying their fair share of taxes.
Trump’s proposed budget clearly shows that his administration’s main priorities are attacking diversity, funding massive tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy, and laying waste to the services, initiatives, and programs that have enriched the lives of Americans for generations. This budget, coupled with cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in the reconciliation bill, will deepen poverty and exacerbate inequality. CLASP calls on Congress to reject the Trump budget and support policies that truly support children, families, and communities across the country.
June 4, 2025, Washington, D.C. – Last July, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) voluntarily recognized CLASP Workers United, a new employee union represented by Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), Local 2. On May 23, 2025, CLASP Workers United and CLASP ratified their first-ever collective bargaining agreement, which was effective immediately and covers the next 24 months.
The agreement addressed the bargaining unit’s rights and protections, hiring processes, pay scale, leave policy, and workplace disputes, among other provisions.
“With this contract, our goal was to set a strong foundation for the negotiating team that will come to the table two years from now. We absolutely achieved that goal,” said Jesse Fairbanks, CLASP Workers United’s President, “We secured several systemic changes in this contract that can be built upon by future members of our union.”
“I am proud of management and staff for coming together on a collaboratively developed agreement rooted in mutual respect and shared values. It embodies our values, codifies fair labor and compensation practices, reinforces clear promotion pathways, and embraces equity and transparency,” said Wendy Chun-Hoon, CLASP’s new president and executive director. “This agreement strengthens both our internal culture and external impact.”
In particular, the agreement bolsters compensation and workplace practices by:
“We are pleased to welcome the employees at CLASP into the OPEIU Local 2 family. Among other things, I was impressed with the bargaining team’s unwavering dedication to ensuring that the lowest-paid employees were elevated to a living wage. This speaks highly of their commitment to the principles of the labor movement as well as the principles that brought them to CLASP employment,” said Sarah Levesque, Secretary-Treasurer, OPEIU, Local 2.
# # # #
The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) is a national, nonpartisan, anti-poverty organization advancing policy solutions for people with low incomes. Because poverty in America is inextricably tied to systemic racism, CLASP focuses its policy and advocacy efforts for economic and racial justice on addressing systemic racism as the primary cause of poverty for communities of color.
CLASP Workers United (CWU) unionized in 2024 as a member of OPEIU Local 2. Our union aims to ensure a balance of institutional power between CLASP management and its workers through increased transparency and shared decision-making. We make space for workers at CLASP to step into their people power and demand organizational change.
CLASP submitted a comment in response to a new rule issued by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) that gives Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) broad access to the immigration status of sponsors and families of unaccompanied children for enforcement purposes and removes safeguards against release denials based solely on a sponsor’s immigration status. When ICE has access to sensitive information, family members have to consider whether they risk detention or even deportation if they apply to sponsor their child out of federal custody. The Rule also permits ORR to deny children release to their parents or other caring sponsors based on immigration status. A parent’s immigration status has nothing to do with their ability to provide a loving home for their child. If a child does not have any family members with stable immigration status, this Rule could lead to their indefinite detention or permanent family separation. Without sponsors, children face prolonged detention and separation from loved ones. We urge ORR to rescind this rule and to act in the best interests of children in their custody, prioritizing family reunification as quickly and safely as possible.
This statement can be attributed to Wendy Chun-Hoon, executive director and president of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP).
Washington, D.C., May 22, 2025—CLASP is outraged that the U.S. House of Representatives voted today to pass its reconciliation bill. This bill guts health care, restricts access to food, sacrifices our higher education system, and punishes immigrant families, all to provide more tax breaks for wealthy people and corporations. The legislation will now go to the Senate, where further changes are expected to be made.
The reconciliation bill contains numerous policies that will make life even more difficult for millions of children, families, and people living on the margins. Cuts to essential benefit programs will cause disproportionate hardship to communities of color, individuals with disabilities, immigrants, U.S. citizen children with one or more undocumented parents, and college students with low incomes. If signed into law, states across the country will see costs shift to them as the federal government pulls back funding for important programs. This will negatively impact state budgets and force states to push people off Medicaid, SNAP, and end other public services.
Proposed changes to the Child Tax Credit could lead to an estimated 4.5 million children who are U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents no longer benefiting from this credit. Medicaid could see $715 billion in cuts, and an estimated 13.7 million people are at risk of losing health insurance. The new provisions to SNAP would cut nearly $300 billion from the program—marking the largest reduction in its history—meaning 11 million adults and children may receive less food assistance or lose it entirely. A proposed increase of $45 billion in funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement puts millions of mixed-status immigrant families at risk of being detained and deported as part of the administration’s devastating mass deportation plan. And education-related cuts include severe restrictions on federal student aid for students with low incomes.
These numbers only include people who will be directly harmed by funding cuts. They don’t account for the local economies that will be destabilized by residents having to choose between buying groceries or paying rent, missing work out of fear of immigration raids, or forgoing needed health care because they are no longer covered by Medicaid or afraid to access it even if they are eligible.
Millions of families will lose their health care, access to food, and the Child Tax Credit if this bill is passed into law, and more immigrant children and families will suffer long-term harm. CLASP is opposed to this bill and calls on the Senate to do everything it can to stop this bill from becoming law.
CLASP’s budget reconciliation blog series examines the policies put forward that have particular resonance for children, families, and communities with low incomes. The series can be found here.
Wendy Cervantes was a guest on Breaking Through, a podcast hosted by founder of MomsRising Kristen Rowe-Finkbeiner. The episode, “Moms Equal Pay Day, Families Over Billionaires, How Medicaid Lifts Rural Moms & Families,” discusses how the Trump administration is using tax dollars for human rights abuses against immigrant families, and how we can speak up to our members of Congress and support mixed-status families in our communities.
By and
(Excerpt)
“Generally, parents are more willing to allow older U.S. citizen children, more so than younger children, to remain in the U.S., said Wendy Cervantes, director of immigration and immigrant families at the Center for Law and Social Policy, an anti-poverty group.”
By Ashley Burnside
As Congress works to advance the proposed budget reconciliation bill of 2025, CLASP’s series “The 2025 Budget Reconciliation’s Impact on People with Low Incomes” will examine the policies put forward that have particular resonance for children, families, and communities with low incomes. This is the fifth blog in the series.
On May 13-14, the House Ways and Means Committee met to mark up its portion of the reconciliation bill. The tax package that passed in 2017, which the reconciliation bill seeks to extend, was skewed to the wealthiest individuals and widened the racial wealth gap. Congressional leadership is using the same playbook now. The proposed tax package will continue to widen inequality by benefiting the wealthiest people and corporations by cutting critical health and nutrition programs that families rely on. It will also enforce harmful restrictions for families who file taxes with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs), despite the fact that ITIN filers pay taxes and contribute substantially to our nation’s economy. No families should be left out of important tax credits simply because they don’t have a Social Security number.
Below, we take a closer look at some particularly harmful parts of the proposed bill.
CTC and Immigrant Children
The committee is considering changing the Child Tax Credit (CTC) so that only households where every member has a Social Security number would be eligible for the credit. In families where even just one parent has an ITIN, otherwise eligible children would no longer receive the CTC. This would restrict access to an estimated 4.5 million children who are U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. The bill also permanently restricts children who don’t have Social Security numbers from accessing the CTC, which is estimated to impact 1 million children.
All families who file a tax return and are otherwise eligible should be able to get the CTC, regardless of their immigration status. People with ITINs pay federal taxes — that’s why they have an ITIN number. This provision only perpetuates the myth that undocumented immigrants don’t pay taxes. In 2022, undocumented immigrants paid an estimated $59.4 billion in federal taxes and $37.3 billion in state and local taxes, totaling $96.7 billion. And in 40 states, undocumented immigrants pay higher state and local tax rates than the top 1 percent of households in the state.
CTC Leaves Behind Too Many Children
Policymakers have proposed raising the maximum CTC amount to $2,500 per child from tax years 2025 through 2028 and adjusting it to inflation. However, this will not address the equity gap in the CTC or most effectively reduce child poverty because children in families with very low incomes will continue to be left out of getting the full credit.
An estimated 17 million children don’t get the full CTC because their families don’t have high enough incomes. These children are disproportionately likely to be Black and Latino due to structural racism embedded within our nation’s labor market. In addition, 30 percent of children living in rural communities were not eligible for the full CTC because their families’ income was too low. If the maximum credit increases to $2,500 per child, an estimated 20 million children would not get the full credit.
Lawmakers should prioritize changes to the CTC that make the credit fully refundable and available to families with little to no earnings in the reconciliation package. This would be the most effective way to reduce child poverty. And there is precedent for bipartisan support for these reforms: Under last year’s Wyden-Smith proposal, lawmakers reached an agreement on CTC reforms that would have helped families with low incomes get a higher credit through increasing the credit available to families with low incomes and multiple children, and by removing the refundability cap.
Immigrant Eligibility for Health Programs
Undocumented immigrants are already restricted from coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its premium tax credits, but the proposal goes further to restrict authorized immigrants from affordable health coverage. It establishes new restrictions for the Advanced Premium Tax Credit (APTC) for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders or individuals covered by or Deferred Enforced Departure (DED), individuals with humanitarian parole, or asylees or those with a pending asylum application.
This is significant because the APTC allows working-class families to better afford health coverage on the ACA Marketplace. Improved parental insurance coverage and health outcomes consistently benefit children in the short- and long-term through improved family health and financial security, just as a lack of health care coverage and the inability to afford medical costs lead to significant burdens on families.
Additionally, the bill strips Medicare coverage for older immigrants who have contributed to the program, often for decades, including TPS and DED holders, refugees, asylees, persons granted withholding of removal, individuals with humanitarian parole, and other immigrants authorized to be in the United States. People work and contribute to programs like Medicare with the expectation that they’ll have access to that support when they are older and retired. Pulling the rug out from under their feet will leave millions of older individuals and individuals with disabilities without coverage.
In addition to losing Medicare coverage and access to the APTC, the bill also strips coverage for lawfully present immigrants to even access the Marketplace coverage if they are under 100 percent of the federal poverty level, or roughly $32,000 for a family of four. This special exception was created because many lawfully present immigrants with low incomes are ineligible for Medicaid coverage. Removing this exception means that immigrants with low incomes would not be eligible for the ACA or Medicaid, denying them any pathway to affordable health coverage.
“No Tax on Tips” and “No Tax on Overtime” Policies
The bill’s attempt to prohibit tips from taxation is regressive and would reduce federal revenue. Workers who don’t pay federal taxes because they earn too little would largely miss out on the benefits of this proposal. The policy would affect payroll and income taxes by reducing what tipped workers pay into and get out of Social Security in retirement.
For its part, the “no tax on overtime” proposal would fully exclude overtime pay from federal income tax. Workers who earn too little to owe federal income tax—often people who are the lowest-paid and most economically vulnerable—receive no benefit at all, despite often working long or irregular hours. The proposal also assumes that all workers have equal access to overtime, but overtime opportunities are not evenly distributed. Workers in sectors like hospitality, caregiving, and retail, who are disproportionately women and people of color, often face unpredictable schedules and limited access to overtime. A truly worker-centered policy would expand access to overtime protections and provide refundable tax credits that reach workers regardless of income level or tax liability.
A Bill That Benefits the Wealthy
Republicans claim that this bill will help workers and families. But these proposed changes—along with tax breaks that reward ultra-wealthy corporations; proposals to exclude immigrant student borrowers and create financial incentives for students to pursue low-quality education programs; an end to the Direct File program; implementing complicated pre-certification requirements in the Earned Income Tax Credit; and punishing private postgraduate institutions that the Trump Administration considers too “woke”— make it clear that only the wealthy and corporations will truly benefit from the current version of the bill. The child care and paid leave provisions will not reach the people who would most benefit from them, and cannot compare to true investments in child care and paid leave.
If Congress votes to include these proposals in the final reconciliation bill, children and families will be worse off. These proposals will deepen income inequality, make it harder for people to access benefits they contribute to, and reward wealthy Americans and corporations at a time when everyday Americans are struggling.
By Teon Hayes
As Congress works to advance the proposed budget reconciliation bill of 2025, CLASP’s series “The 2025 Budget Reconciliation’s Impact on People with Low Incomes” will examine the policies put forward that have particular resonance for children, families, and communities with low incomes. This is the third blog in the series.
On May 13, the House Agriculture Committee met to mark up its portion of the GOP’s proposed reconciliation bill. One of the main issues under consideration is the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides food assistance to families with low incomes.
The proposed changes largely restrict access, tighten eligibility, and shift administrative costs from the federal government to the states. If enacted, this will amount to the largest cut in the program’s history.
Implementing Strict Work Requirements
Most adults who use SNAP either are already working but in jobs that pay low wages and offer unstable hours. They could also be briefly between jobs, have a disability, and/or have significant caregiving responsibilities. The House Agriculture bill proposes raising the age for work requirements from 54 to 64 for able-bodied adults without dependents and redefines “dependent child” to include any child under seven, instead of under 18. It also limits the USDA’s ability to approve state waivers for work requirements only in areas with over a 10 percent unemployment rate and reduces the allowable exempt population from 8 percent to 1 percent. This means that more caregivers and older adults are expected to work to receive SNAP, a change that may disproportionately affect Black and brown families, especially single mothers with school-aged children.
This heartless provision jeopardizes the livelihoods of 6 million adults by putting them at risk of losing SNAP benefits entirely. It could also reduce food assistance for an additional 5 million people in their households, including more than 4 million children between the ages of 7 and 17. That’s about 11 million people in total. Cuts of this scale would have devastating consequences for the most vulnerable. Families in areas with high unemployment could lose protections due to stricter waiver rules, and it would be more difficult for states to protect vulnerable populations during economic downturns or in areas with unemployment rates that are high but not extreme. Simply looking for work doesn’t count toward the requirement, and many unemployed individuals need more than the allotted three months to secure a job, even in strong labor markets.
Research shows that work requirements do not lead to stable jobs or economic security but, rather, cause a large decline in program participation. Work requirements don’t address the real barriers that keep people from finding stable employment—they ignore systemic issues like racial discrimination, lack of child care and transportation, and the shortage of living-wage jobs. Therefore, work requirements push people deeper into a cycle of low-wage, volatile, unstable work. These policies have roots in harmful, racially charged narratives about who is “deserving” of help—narratives that have long targeted Black and brown communities. Work requirements make public benefits more complicated to access and add unnecessary burdens for people who need food. They also cost states millions of dollars. When Arkansas implemented work requirements for Medicaid, the policy ended up costing the state and federal government $26.1 million without achieving its intended employment goals. Basic, life-sustaining support should not depend on meeting a work requirement.
State Match
Currently, the federal government covers 100 percent of SNAP benefits, while states share administrative costs, which are typically split 50/50 with the federal government. The proposed reconciliation bill would require states to gradually cover a minimum of 5 percent of SNAP benefits starting in fiscal year (FY) 2028. States with high SNAP error rates would pay up to 25 percent. The federal share of administrative costs would drop from 50 percent to 25 percent, with states having to contribute up to 75 percent of these costs.
This shift would push states into a cost-containment mindset, giving them financial incentives to restrict eligibility and reduce participation, even if the need for benefits remains high. It would also cost states hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when their budgets are under strain and could lead to stricter eligibility rules, reduced benefit amounts, or both, as well as reduced staffing, services, and program access at state agencies. States that struggle to cover their share may be forced to limit participation, making it harder for families striving for economic security to access the nutrition they need to stay healthy and financially stable. While this change would impact all states, large states like Texas and California, and poor states, primarily in the Deep South, would be disproportionately affected.
Restricting Thrifty Food Plan Updates
This bill also seeks to permanently freeze the Thrifty Food Program (TFP) and adjust it only for inflation. This proposal would lock SNAP benefits to outdated food cost estimates, ignoring both scientific evidence and the actual cost of a healthy diet. This would prevent benefits from keeping pace with rising food prices—repeating the same shortcomings seen during the 50 years before the 2021 update. Even after that update, SNAP benefits remain modest, increasing from just $4.80 to $6.20 per person, per day. As food prices continue to rise and funding for food assistance programs is reduced nationwide, families will be left without enough support to put food on the table, and with fewer community resources like food banks to help fill the gap.
Restricting Immigrant Eligibility
The proposed legislation would deny food benefits to all non-citizens who are not lawful permanent residents, including refugees and people who have been granted asylum. These two categories of immigrants were exempted from restrictions enacted in 1996. In FY23, 434,000 refugees and asylees participated in SNAP.
It’s essential to understand that asylees and refugees have fled persecution and violence, and often carry deep trauma. Instead of supporting their healing, policies that restrict access to food only add to their stress and hardship. In addition, this proposal creates fear and confusion, discouraging even eligible immigrants and U.S. citizen children from accessing food assistance. When immigrant families avoid programs like SNAP due to fear, it deepens hunger and poverty. This change would have a particularly chilling effect on SNAP enrollment among immigrant communities. It could also cause mixed-status families to lose benefits or face confusion and fear around eligibility.
We must remember the human lives behind these numbers. These harmful cuts will directly impact hardworking adults, parents, children, seniors, and people with disabilities—those who already face some of the most significant barriers to stability. Black and brown communities, who have long been marginalized and disproportionately affected by hunger and poverty, will bear the brunt of these changes. Hunger and access to food should never be treated as political bargaining chips. It is the duty of our elected leaders to protect and uplift the communities they serve. This reconciliation bill does the opposite. It reflects priorities that are out of step with justice, compassion, and basic human dignity, and we must demand better.
CLASP submitted this statement for the record in response to the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions “Hearing on Fiscal Year 2026 Department of Health and Human Services Budget.”