By: Fernie Ortiz
Excerpt:
Wendy Cervantes, director of the Children Thrive Action Network and director of immigration and immigrant families at the Center for Law and Social Policy, said the results of Tuesday’s elections should have paved the way for federal and state policymakers to rein in what it calls harmful attacks on immigrant children and families.
“Families across the nation are asking for simple things: to keep their kids safe, to afford groceries and gas, and to see a doctor when they’re sick,” Cervantes said. “Stephen Miller has spent his career doing the opposite, tearing apart families and undermining children’s safety and well-being. Our kids need leaders who invest in every child’s future — not leaders who leave kids without their parents. The nation voted for a better future for our families, and we urge Congress to deliver by stopping harmful actors like Stephen Miller and implementing policies that will allow all children to thrive.”
CLASP strongly opposes the Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau’s proposed revisions to overhaul the set of rules regarding the Decennial Census of the Population of Americans, including the proposed residence criteria and the proposed demographic questions. As we explain in more detail in the comments, if implemented, the Census proposed regulations are both unconstitutional and a threat to democracy, economic stability, and the health of all Americans. This proposal could lead to disruptions in housing, community development, health, education, employment, child care, food, shelter, community services, disaster recovery, and more in communities and states nationwide. For these reasons, the Census Bureau and the Department of Commerce should immediately withdraw the current proposal and leave the current regulations as codified in 2024.
By Gary Stout
Excerpt:
The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) created an interactive tracking tool called the “DOGE Tracker” to document the damage caused by DOGE’s activities. Among the many findings were: 1) Overall, in the Center for Disease Control’s workforce, 2,400 federal layoffs or roughly 18% were let go; 2) In the Department of Health and Human Services, there were 50% cuts to the Office of Child Care and 50% cuts to Head Start offices; 3) The National Institute of Health experienced 1,200 layoffs; 4) The Social Security Administration lost 7,000 employees; 5) There were 3,500 terminations in the Food and Drug Administration; 6) The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the Weather Service, lost 1,300 employees.
By Ryan Hess
Excerpt:
The Center for Law and Social Policy, an organization that advocates for low-income workers, recently published the report From Access to Mobility: Immigrant Workers in the App-Based Gig Economy.
Lorena Roque, the associate director for labor policy at CLASP, authored the report. The International Rescue Committee, a national organization that provides immigrant integration services, including employment services, provided support for this research.
The report is based on administrative data from the IRC’s programs, as well as survey data and findings from qualitative interviews with immigrant gig workers. About two-thirds of the workers surveyed for the report are Afghans, a population that is often served by refugee programs. The surveying and interviews took place inlate-2024 and early-2025, prior to the Trump Administration’s expanded immigration enforcement efforts.
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This research found that these workers were primarily drawn to app-based gig employment for flexibility, immediate earning potential, the ability to overcome language limitations, and the barrier of having foreign occupational credentials that go without recognition in the United States. Some people valued the autonomy and self-scheduling of gig work. Several interview participants talked about being able to make time available for family needs.
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The report includes recommendations for practice for organizations that serve immigrant workers. One idea is for outreach and engagement to offer services to the gig worker population. Organizations can offer workshops on topics such as worker rights,safety strategies and gig platform navigation.
Career coaching and small business technical assistance could be next-level strategies for serving these workers, the report recommends. Further on, strategies could include support for occupational training, or assistance in accessing small business capital.
At all stages, gig workers could benefit from tax education and assistance, connections to affordable financial services such as the offerings of credit unions, and financial planning.
“As immigrants continue to turn to gig work as a primary or supplementary source of income, service providers must adapt their strategies to better meet the needs of this growing labor force,” the report says.
Priya Pandey appeared on this episode of Growing Up in America: The Way it Is, Children at Risk’s podcast series. Priya examined how immigration policies can affect immigrant families’ access to Head Start, child care assistance, and other early learning services. Her segment starts at 42:00 below:
This is the third blog in a series exploring a shared vision for universal child care and CLASP’s efforts, alongside partners, to turn this vision into a reality. The full series can be found here.
By Stephanie Schmit
Despite chronic underinvestment and the Trump Administration’s efforts to weaken the child care system, the case for universal child care has never been stronger. The challenges families and providers are facing make it increasingly clear that incremental fixes are no longer enough. A universal child care system that guarantees free, high-quality care for every family while ensuring providers earn meaningful compensation, including wages and benefits, is an achievable solution, and the conditions to advance that vision are coming to fruition.
| A universal child care system is one where every family who needs child care can access it. To create the supply needed to make care universal, providers must be adequately compensated and supported to stay in the field and provide high-quality care. Through fully funded public investment, a universal system ensures cohesive and clear availability and accessibility to care and learning for all families with children, regardless of race, immigration status, income, disability, geography, and other factors that have historically impeded access. A universal system also ensures that the child care workforce is well-paid; provided with benefits like health care and retirement; and has access to training or higher/continuing education if desired, advancement opportunities, and more. To achieve this, the lived experience of the families and providers who rely on and sustain the system is centered in policy design and implementation. Ultimately, a universal system ensures that child care is a public good, not a family’s private responsibility. |
Many factors make the potential for universal child care viable, including:
The combination of an organized movement, state-level progress, growing Congressional support, and energized parents and grassroots advocates makes universal child care not simply an aspirational goal, but a viable federal policy agenda in the years ahead. The child care crisis has long been a major problem facing this country, but we now have the opportunity for federal investment in a system that will improve people’s lives.
On October 22, 2026, CLASP hosted an event exploring and discussing universal child care titled, “What if the Current Fight to Protect Child Care is also an Opportunity to Transform it?” To learn more about what it means to build a truly equitable universal child care system, please visit our recent Equity Matters event and resource page.
Excerpts:
“It’s the most anti-child agenda I have ever seen in my entire career,” said Wendy Cervantes, director of immigration and immigrant families at the Center for Law and Social Policy.
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Cervantes said she can’t pinpoint which of Trump’s immigration tactics have hurt kids most.
“You can’t rank them,” she said. “Experts in child development say that in order for children to thrive and become healthy adults, they need access to their parents, access to healthcare, nutritious food, housing, childcare and a quality education. And these are all things that are very specifically being targeted.”
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“Basically every aspect of a child’s well-being is being undermined by this web of different policies,” Cervantes said.
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Repeated attacks on childcare workers — some targeting much-needed preschool teachers and aides, particularly through Head Start — also have left children increasingly unprotected, Cervantes said.
Excerpt:
Wendy Cervantes, director of immigration and immigrant families at the Center for Law and Social Policy, says the anti-immigrant agenda is targeted intentional harm of children and families. “This kind of stress has long-term developmental harms on children and can really undercut their ability to do well in school, and that will also inhibit their ability to grow into healthy, thriving adults.”
CLASP and the National Women’s Law Center submitted a public comment opposing the Department of Health and Human Services’ proposed Head Start rule that would destabilize the program by overhauling the regulations that underpin Head Start’s effective, high-quality, wraparound services model. On top of eliminating approximately 90 percent of the performance standards that make Head Start strong, the rule introduces an English-only instruction requirement that would harm immigrant families, dual language learners, and Head Start staff.
By Stephanie Schmit
This blog is part of a series exploring a shared vision for universal child care and CLASP’s efforts, alongside partners, to turn this vision into a reality. The full series can be found here.
Every vision needs a strong foundation. That is why CLASP has engaged with partners through the Child Care for Every Family Network for many years to develop a strong foundation for universal child care rooted in a commitment to learning from one another’s perspectives and expertise, supporting all families, centering those with diverse lived experiences, and designed in a meaningful way.
This intentional effort created the shared policy principles that ground all our joint efforts: equity, access, guaranteed care, support for a thriving workforce, culturally and linguistically responsive, financially stable, well-governed, quality, and designed by those most impacted.
Together we envisioned a publicly funded universal child care system that:
| A universal child care system is one where every family who needs child care can access it. To create the supply needed to make care universal, providers must be adequately compensated and supported to stay in the field and provide high-quality care. Through fully funded public investment, a universal system ensures cohesive and clear availability and accessibility to care and learning for all families with children, regardless of race, immigration status, income, disability, geography, and other factors that have historically impeded access. A universal system also ensures that the child care workforce is well-paid, provided with benefits like health care and retirement, and has access to training or higher/continuing education if desired, advancement opportunities, and more. To achieve this vision, the lived experience of the families and providers who rely on and sustain the system is centered in policy design and implementation. Ultimately, a universal system ensures that child care is a public good, not a family’s private responsibility. |
The story of these principles is about the “what,” of course, but it’s also about the “how.” These principles were built in partnership with diverse perspectives and people who are directly impacted, including parents and providers, and have guided the Network’s collective efforts across partners. CLASP helped to draft these principles, but also strives to live in them in our day-to-day work as we create and analyze policy porposals and continue to build trusted relationships with those closest to the challenges of the sector.
These principles and the intentional design of the Network have built momentum for a very exciting moment. CLASP is proud to stand with our partners in the Child Care for Every Family Network to launch the Child Care for All campaign.
This campaign is a national movement of partners from across the country who have come together to win free, universal child care for everyone. We are working to create a world where every family has access to the care that they need, when and where they need it. It is an effort that will benefit everyone: families, child care providers, employers, and the economy.
All of the work that CLASP is engaging in to fight back against attacks at the federal level and push progress forward at the state level is in service of the universal child care vision we are trying to achieve and to help us to build the power and foundation for what’s necessary to make Child Care for All a reality.
Join us in this important effort!
On October 22, 2026, CLASP hosted an event exploring and discussing universal child care titled, “What if the Current Fight to Protect Child Care is also an Opportunity to Transform it?” To learn more about what it means to build a truly equitable universal child care system, please visit our recent Equity Matters event and resource page.