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By Alyssa Fortner

This is the first 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.

The need for a stronger, universal child care system is clearer than ever as the Trump Administration is actively working to dismantle it. The administration has laid off over half of the Office of Child Care and Office of Head Start staff; illegally moved to freeze child care funding for states they consider political opponents; peddled unfounded fraud allegations that attack the integrity of child care providers and the state administrators that help families access care; and released regulations that destabilize the child care and early education sector further when it is in need of critical support.

At the same time, our child care system has continued to be shaped by racial, gender, and economic inequities and decades of underinvestment. Despite the immense value of child care, from supporting children’s development to sustaining a strong economy, it remains inaccessible and unaffordable for many families. Per the most recent data, only 1 in 7 eligible children had access to a subsidy through the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), the primary federal funding source created to provide child care assistance for families with low incomes. And the child care workforce remains deeply underpaid and undervalued, earning less than 97 percent of other professions and frequently lacking benefits like health insurance and retirement. The harm is even more pronounced for Black and Latina early educators, who despite holding equivalent educational credentials, earn thousands less than white early educators.

But what if the current fight to protect child care is also an opportunity to transform it?

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. It 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. And, to do 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 the family’s private responsibility.

We can already see what’s possible: while the federal government is undermining the sector, states like New Mexico and New York are stepping up to move the work forward and deliver on the true needs of children and families. And while states should not carry this responsibility or financial burden alone, their transformational efforts offer exciting proof points for what is possible when child care is seen and valued as a public good. Building on significant investments during the COVID-19 pandemic, New Mexico has expanded free child care for all families regardless of income or immigration status, while New York is pursuing expanded access through investments in child care infrastructure and beginning to implement free “2-K” in New York City.

In the past, we’ve even seen congressional action in working toward universal child care, too. In 1971, Congress passed the bipartisan Comprehensive Child Development Act (CCDA). And in 2021, the Biden-Harris Administration’s proposed Build Back Better (BBB) plan would have made historic, robust investments in child care and pre-kindergarten to lay the groundwork for universal child care as well. Unfortunately, President Nixon’s veto of the CCDA and the failure of the Senate to pass BBB stalled both major federal efforts. However, current congressional interest, combined with many state actions, shows us that not only is universal child care possible, it is essential.

The lessons learned, strong partnerships with directly impacted people, and the positive proof points we are seeing at all levels of government, make it clear that we have an opportunity to leverage these efforts to preserve what exists to create a vision for the future of child care that is inclusive, comprehensive, and truly meets the needs of all who participate in it.

Now is the time to turn the defense of what we have into the power we need to work together to build the system children, families, and providers have always deserved.

To learn more about what it means to build a truly equitable universal child care system, please join us for CLASP’s next installment of Equity Matters, “What if the Current Fight to Protect Child Care is also an Opportunity to Transform it?” on October 22 from 1-2:30 pm ET. Register here.

By Lorena Roque

This report from CLASP and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) provides an in-depth look at the role of gig work in the lives of immigrant workers. The data show that gig work can offer short-term financial relief to immigrant workers and their families. However, the longstanding lack of regulations and worker protection in this sector makes gig work particularly precarious for immigrants, who are disproportionately affected by discriminatory and xenophobic rhetoric and policies.

The report draws on three different forms of immigrant gig worker data: programmatic data from the IRC, a service provider for immigrants and refugees; survey data; and qualitative interviews. The qualitative interviews were conducted in late 2024 and early 2025, before the second Trump Administration ramped up its anti-immigrant policies to the current level.

In addition to providing insight into the lived experience of immigrant gig workers and their families, this report offers recommendations for policymakers to ensure that all immigrant gig workers are able to do their jobs safely and with dignity.

>>Download Publication

 

By Mikayla Slaydon

On July 16, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a new public charge rule that could impact immigrant families’ access to basic needs and education programs. The final rule, effective on September 18, 2026, makes changes to an immigration process used in some green card determinations known as public charge. It removes parameters established in 2022 around the types of programs that DHS officers can or cannot consider when determining whether a noncitizen is likely to become a “public charge,” creating confusion and uncertainty for green card applicants.

On August 18, DHS published guidance on how the final rule will be implemented. Here is what early childhood partners and the child advocacy community need to know:

What is a “public charge”?      

DHS uses the public charge determination as one component of the green card application review process for some immigrants to determine the likelihood of the applicant to primarily depend on the government for support in the future. If an immigration officer determines that an applicant is likely to become a “public charge,” their application for admission to the United States or their application for lawful permanent resident status (green card) can be rejected.

What does the new public charge rule do?

The new policy and guidance take away clear rules for deciding whether someone could become a “public charge” and leaves the question about which benefits count toward someone being considered a “public charge.”

Who does public charge apply to?

The “public charge inadmissibility test” only applies to people applying for a green card or a visa to enter the U.S., or to green card holders who leave the country for more than 180 days.

Public charge does not apply if you’re a U.S. citizen; you’re applying for or already have Temporary Protected Status, a “U” or “T” visa, asylum, refugee, or Special Immigrant Juvenile Status; you currently have no pathway to obtain a green card; or you do not plan to apply for a green card in the future. For more information on different immigration status categories and how public charge does or does not apply, see this resource.

Will a child’s use or receipt of benefits count against an immigrant parent?

The 2026 final rule and guidance defines what the word “receipt” means in the context of the application. Receipt only occurs when the immigrant applicant is listed as the beneficiary of the benefit. If, for example, an immigrant applicant applied for SNAP on behalf of their citizen child, the applicant would not be considered as the beneficiary. However, if the child or another person under the legal care of the applicant qualifies for the benefit because the applicant’s income falls below an eligibility threshold, guidance has stated that DHS may consider the applicant’s underlying financial circumstances. Therefore, an immigrant applicant’s low income can be a factor in the public charge assessment.

What does the public charge rule mean for the early childhood community?

The final rule does not specify a list of benefits that will or will not be considered in a public charge determination, but says that means-tested benefits—that is, those where eligibility is based on income or resources—can be considered. Receipt of a means-tested benefit does not automatically mean that an applicant will be considered a public charge. Instead, officers make individualized determinations based on the totality of the applicant’s circumstances.

The preamble to the final rule discusses various public benefits that officers may consider in a public charge determination. However, this is not legally binding. DHS states in the preamble that it “will consider the participation in means-tested child care, child development, and child education programs, including Head Start, and [Early Intervention] services, funded by the government” when received by immigrant children who are themselves subject to the public charge ground of inadmissibility.

DHS also addresses situations in which an immigrant parent is subject to a public charge determination and their child participates in a means-tested, government-funded program. DHS states in the preamble that it “will also consider the children’s receipt of such benefits as part of the parents’ assets, resources, and financial status, if the children’s eligibility for the benefits is based on the parents’ income falling below a certain threshold.” However, receipt of benefits by a family member does not need to be reported on the adjustment of status form. Parents’ employment and earnings are also important components of the totality of circumstances determination.

In both scenarios, DHS also clarified in the preamble and in subsequent guidance that it will only consider receipt of means-tested child care, child development, and child education programs funded by the government on or after the effective date of the final rule.

What should early childhood partners communicate to providers, parents, and anyone else who works with immigrant families?

Partners who work with immigrant families will likely receive questions from parents who are concerned about their children’s use of benefits, or how accessing federally funded child care programs may affect their immigration status or citizenship application. To continue to serve as a trusted source of information, partners must be able to answer basic questions and point parents in the right direction for more complicated questions.

Share resources with parents and families. Our goal is to make sure people have accurate and timely information so they can make informed decisions, not decisions based on fear or rumors.

Resources

Washington, D.C., September 15, 2026—Today’s release of the U.S. Census Bureau’s national Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance data for 2025 may be the last year of positive impact, as the prior administration’s policy choices taper off. Despite this, enormous income inequality persists.

In 2025, median household income increased 2.6 percent, to $87,460. Median earnings for women also increased by 3.2 percent; they now make 84 percent of what their male counterparts are paid. And 92.1 percent of the U.S. population had health insurance for at least some part of last year.

While these numbers may not seem concerning, a closer look reveals troubling trends and worrying indicators for future years. The median income didn’t rise enough to cover today’s inflation; indeed, when accounting for the effect of inflation in 2026, median income only rose less than one percentage point.

When income doesn’t keep up with inflation, the individuals and families most affected are those earning the least amount of money. This demographic is also disproportionately affected by the many provisions in H.R.1, which passed in July 2025, and that will further jeopardize economic security. We will not see the true impact of these provisions until next year’s numbers are released and as elements of these policies take full effect, but an estimated 4.5 million people lost SNAP coverage between July 2025 and May 2026, including approximately 1.5 million children.

Today’s data also showed that nearly eight million people were pushed into poverty due to health expenses. With millions more expected to lose Medicaid coverage because of H.R.1, the number of people who enter poverty due to higher out-of-pocket health care costs will also increase in the coming years.

“Many of the policies enacted in July 2025 through H.R.1 are on a long fuse, with just some of the massive cuts taking effect last year and many more on tap in the coming years. This means that the numbers we see today will only get worse in the future, including for children, women, immigrants, and people of color. We’re especially concerned about immigrants whose ability to work and access care without fear of immigration enforcement has already severely impacted their daily lives and economic security,” said Wendy Chun-Hoon, executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy.

The persistent gender wage gap is also a nagging indicator. While that gap narrowed in 2025, likely due to the beneficial polices of the previous administration, women’s wages only moved closer to men’s by three cents. Such a slight increase will not move the needle on income inequality.

Overall, today’s data can be seen as setting the baseline for the harmful policies hardwired to play out in the coming years. And even at this baseline, we can see that people are not moving out of poverty—they are holding steady. While we are relieved that the news is not worse, we recognize that the affordability crisis and impending cuts to programs families rely on will increase income inequality, widen the wealth and gender wage gaps, and push more Americans into economic precarity and poverty.

“As the affordability crisis deepens, so does the country’s wealth gap. H.R.1’s tax cuts for the wealthy were largely funded by draconian cuts to programs that support people with lower incomes. As a result, we expect to see income inequality rise even more in the coming years, as income soars for the wealthy while working families will see lower incomes and continued challenges with affording the groceries, rent, and other things they need for to survive—and thrive,” said Chun-Hoon.

By Tami Luhby

Excerpt:

“Many of the policies enacted in July 2025 through H.R.1 are on a long fuse, with just some of the massive cuts taking effect last year and many more on tap in the coming years,” Wendy Chun-Hoon, executive director of the left-leaning Center for Law and Social Policy, said in a statement, referring to the GOP package.

Read full CNN article here. 

By Sydney Ember and Margot Sanger-Katz

Excerpt:

“The people who are feeling the inflation impact are people who are lowest income,” said Wendy Chun-Hoon, the president of the left-leaning Center for Law and Social Policy.

Read full New York Times article here.

By Claudia Boyd-Barrett

Excerpt:

“I’m really concerned about how long it’s going to take for us as a country to address all of the harm that’s happening to this generation of kids,” said Wendy Cervantes, director of immigration and immigrant families at the Center for Law and Social Policy. “This type of stress can have long-term developmental harm and can really inhibit their ability to do well in school, to have good health outcomes, and to grow into thriving, stable adults.”

Read full KFF Health News article here.

 

By Shira Small

The Trump Administration continues to harm a child care and early education sector in desperate need of support. Recent efforts to weaken the programs meant to make child care more affordable and accessible are not new; the administration has only built on their destabilizing early education policies from year one in office. Through harmful regulatory action, illegal funding freezes, and unfounded fraud allegations, the Trump Administration has spent its second year continuing to dismantle the early childhood education programs children and families need most.

The child care sector is already on shaky ground: the average annual cost of child care has risen to $13,184, while only 1 in 6 children eligible for child care subsidies are able to access them, per the most recently available data. The rising cost of living is straining both families and the child care workforce, whose woefully low compensation drives turnover and attrition—especially for providers participating in the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), the primary federal funding stream for child care assistance.

Working to increase funding, center family and provider needs, and engage state and local systems to expand access to care would all be critical steps in addressing the affordability crisis. Instead, here is how the administration has targeted the child care and early education sector in 2026 so far:

Conclusion
The legislative and regulatory attacks to CCDF from the Trump Administration make one thing clear: they have no real solutions to the child care crisis. Instead of using their power to address skyrocketing costs for families and support a strained child care workforce, this administration has attempted to divert attention from their policy failures by weakening the public’s faith in public services and the public servants who administer them. Deregulation, attacks to program integrity, and attempts to censor the role that racial inequity plays in this country’s economy and history only amount to a destabilized sector, with parents still struggling to afford care and providers still not earning enough to provide it.

These attacks have real consequences for vulnerable families and an already fragile sector. Child care centers have been raided as a result of the administration’s rhetoric, and immigrant communities are being targeted and attacked, on top of the dangerous immigration policy agenda the administration was already leading. The result is communities in crisis, with families afraid to access the supports for which they’re eligible and the provider workforce shrinking further as immigrant early educators are attacked.

The child care and early education sector needs stronger investment and good-faith engagement from leaders who want the best for children, families, and providers, not the best for their political agenda.

The following statement can be attributed to Wendy Cervantes, director of the Immigration and Immigrant Families team at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP).


Washington, D.C, September 2, 2026—Children’s advocates mourn the death of Pierre Damas Bel, a Black 20-year-old first-year college student from Haiti with dreams of becoming a doctor. His preventable death followed weeks of anguish after he was stripped of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and fitted with an ankle monitor, along with many other Haitian Ohioans who have built their lives in Springfield. Pierre is one of more than 350,000 Haitian nationals across the country who have been robbed of their work authorization and legal status due to the Trump Administration’s termination of TPS for Haiti, leaving them vulnerable to detention, deportation, and family separation. Pierre’s tragic story is a reminder that Black immigrants continually face the compounded pressures of a punitive immigration system that is not only xenophobic and outdated, but also anti-Black.  

Experts from the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) issued the following statements:

Wendy Cervantes, Director of Immigration and Immigrant Families at CLASP: “All of our children deserve the opportunity to follow their dreams and prepare for their futures. They deserve to build community, pursue an education, and put down roots in the place they call home. But the federal government has robbed this from countless children and adults, like 20-year-old Pierre Damas Bel, by cruelly taking away their immigration status and forcing them to wear electronic shackles; and others by locking them away in detention camps and sending them to dangerous places they don’t know. 

“No child, teenager, or young adult should have their lives cut short by any policy or political agenda. Nothing can undo what was done to Pierre, but our elected officials can act now to stop the bleeding they’ve caused to our beautifully diverse communities. Remove the shackles, restore dignity. Close the camps, cancel the removal flights. Make pathways to stabilizing immigration status. Invest in solutions that ensure all of our children can grow up to become whole, healthy adults. Our precious children need us to create the conditions that let them live.”

Kaelin Rapport, PhD, ACLS Leading Edge Fellow and Policy Analyst, Public Benefits Justice at CLASP: “Pierre’s future was stolen by the Trump Administration’s crusade of wanton cruelty against immigrants—and built on a history of the United States using carceral violence against Black individuals. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has used electronic monitoring—modern-day shackles—to surveil Black communities, including immigrants. In my research, I’ve repeatedly heard from men like Pierre how humiliating it is to be subjected to this type of surveillance; people reported feeling dehumanized, stigmatized, depressed, and paranoid, presenting long-term consequences for public health. 

“While electronic monitoring is often praised because of its presumed cost and harm reduction, Pierre’s and other Haitian Ohioans’ stories show us otherwise. By stripping Black immigrants of their legal status, surveilling them both in and out of detention, and sending them to harmful conditions, the United States is simply repeating its long history of criminalizing Black people. Our policymakers at all levels of government must do right by our Black and immigrant neighbors, remove their shackles, free them from unnecessary immigrant detention, and create workable pathways to citizenship that allow them to build stable lives in the American communities they call home.”

Christian Collins, Policy Analyst, Education, Labor, and Worker Justice at CLASP: “The tragedy that has befallen Pierre Damas Bel’s family and community is a direct consequence of the Trump Administration’s abject cruelty towards Black immigrants. However, the state of Ohio also bears responsibility for this tragedy. State policymakers have shamelessly watched as the federal government has weaponized racism and xenophobia against Springfield’s Haitian community—a population who happily integrated themselves into a struggling city to help revitalize it.  

“Ohio has not only failed to protect Pierre because of his immigration status, but has made him the latest example in a long list of its failures to protect Ohio’s college students. It is no surprise that a system that has failed to stand up for its students against policymakers’ attacks, has again failed to stand up for Pierre as he faced isolation and bullying after beginning his semester at Wright State. No family or community sends their children to be harassed or to die at an educational institution. Ohio’s policymakers and its schools must protect students and communities against the harms they face from the Trump Administration—not sacrifice them to cling to the altar of power.” 

By Elizabeth Lower-Basch

CLASP’s new working paper examines 30 years of TANF and finds that the program now reaches far fewer families while providing substantially less cash assistance. It finds limited evidence that TANF’s work requirements produced lasting employment or earnings gains and argues that declining caseloads should not be treated as a measure of success. The paper cautions against applying TANF-style work requirements and administrative barriers to programs like SNAP and Medicaid.

>>Download the Working Paper