In this op-ed for Inside Higher Ed, Christian describes how student loan forgiveness is being used as a tool by the administration to recruit Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Among other things, he notes, “By passing the reconciliation bill that nearly tripled ICE’s budget while restricting Pell Grant eligibility for some students and cutting back basic needs programs like food stamps and Medicaid, congressional leaders have identified themselves as active participants in this strategy.”
This statement can be attributed to Wendy Chun-Hoon, executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Washington, D.C., October 28, 2025—With the federal government shutdown nearly a month old, it is important to note that the chaos, dysfunction, and harm to families and workers caused by the shutdown is a result of deliberate policy choices by the Trump Administration and Republican leadership in Congress.
The stalemate created by the refusal of Congressional leadership and the Trump Administration to come to the table is unnecessarily threatening food assistance, access to Head Start, and other important programs families rely on and forcing millions of people to soon face increasing health care costs.
The government shutdown was entirely avoidable. The lawmakers who voted for H.R. 1 in July actively chose not to extend enhanced premium tax credits to keep health care more affordable, despite knowing that they would expire this year. Instead, lawmakers passed a bill that costs trillions of dollars to pay for tax breaks to the wealthiest and corporations and increased funding for harmful ICE immigration enforcement, all while cutting Medicaid and SNAP and making marketplace health insurance unaffordable for millions of U.S. citizens.
The continued government shutdown has resulted in thousands of federal workers needlessly losing their jobs or not receiving paychecks this month. However, some federal employees like ICE agents are still getting paid to carry out indiscriminate immigration enforcement actions, resulting in more than 170 U.S. citizens being detained. At the same time, construction recently began on a $300 million White House ballroom. This country’s leadership is prioritizing terrorizing families and executive mansion renovations over ensuring that individuals and families receive the support and benefits that they need to thrive.
With the government shutdown approaching November, the funding is at risk for programs that families rely on, like SNAP, WIC, and Head Start. SNAP, which allows approximately 42 million people to afford food, and WIC, which provides nutritional support, education, and other forms of assistance for pregnant women and parents with children under 5 years old, are two of the most effective tools we have to prevent food insecurity, stabilize local economies, and support public health. Suspending or delaying benefits would have devastating consequences for millions of households across the country and will further strain food pantries that are already stretched thin. Head Start and Early Head Start play a valuable role in providing early education to hundreds of thousands of families every year; if the shutdown persists into November, federal grants for more than 100 Head Start programs across the country will be cut, threatening access for more than 65,000 families that depend on the program. Moreover, millions of families will begin to see their cost of health insurance more than double next year.
Congress must extend the ACA enhanced premium tax credits, reopen the government, and deliver full coverage of benefits and access to programs that people rely on. Again, this is a manufactured crisis. Despite their statements to the contrary, the administration clearly has the means to use authorized USDA funds until Congress acts to ensure families, seniors, workers, and millions of other people don’t go hungry in November.
By Diane Harris
In January 2023, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement (DALE) to strengthen labor standards enforcement for immigrant workers. The program gave workers in labor disputes temporary protection from deportation and work authorization, ensuring they could participate in investigations without fear. Yet earlier this summer the Trump Administrationended the program with little notice. Now, millions of immigrant workers are at risk of workplace abuses and injuries.
What is DALE?
For decades, DHS had occasionally provided temporary protections for people serving as witnesses in labor or civil rights cases. DALE was significant because itformalized and streamlined this process. The program established a centralized system and made it easier for workers to apply for protection from deportation and work permits and for labor agencies to hold employers accountable. In its first year, DALEencouraged more workers to testify in hearings and provide evidence in investigations, strengthening labor standards enforcement for all workers.
Why DALE Matters
All workers deserve safe jobs, fair pay, and the ability to speak up when those standards are violated. Yetworker exploitation remains a problem in the United States, from unsafe conditions to wage theft to union busting. Immigrant and undocumented workers are especially at risk because of occupational segregation, racial profiling, and concentration in industries with high rates of abuse and retaliation.
Without DALE, these workers must once again weigh reporting violations against the risk of deportation. This threat is even more acute now, as the administration continues its campaign for mass deportations, now withmore funding than ever before andexpanded expedited removals allowing officials to deport noncitizens without a court hearing. This results in a chilling effect that silences workers, makes it harder for agencies to enforce labor laws, and emboldens abusive employers.
The Costs of Silencing Workers
Research shows that immigrant workers are particularly vulnerable and face adisproportionate rate of abuse in the workplace.A landmark survey of 4,300 workers in low-wage positions in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York found that immigrant workers are nearly twice as likely as U.S.-born workers to experience minimum wage violations. Female undocumented workers are the most at risk, with almost half of these respondents experiencing a minimum wage violation in the previous week.
Immigrant workers are also more likely than U.S.-born workers to be injured orkilled at work. In 2024,two-thirds of Latino workers who died on the job were born outside the United States. Despite these conditions, immigrant workers areless likely to report violations because of the ever-present threat ofdeportation as retaliation.
When immigrant workers lose protections, the consequences ripple across the entire workforce. If workers cannot report abuse safely, employers face little accountability and can more easily cut corners on safety, commit wage theft, or retaliate against anyone who speaks up. This drives down standards for all workers.
A Pattern of Priorities
Ending DALE is part of broader pattern: prioritizing immigration enforcement over worker protections. Ananalysis by the Economic Policy Institute found that between 2012 and 2021, immigration enforcement received more federal funding than any other labor-related priority. In May of this year, the administration requested increased funding for the Department of Homeland Security bynearly 65 percent for fiscal year 2026, while ignoring urgent issues that impact all workers like affordable housing, rising costs of living, and worker safety. At the same time, programs likeMedicaid and the Child Tax Credit face cuts—further undermining the well-being of working families.
This approach makes one thing clear: the Trump Administration is willing to sacrifice the health and safety of our workforce in pursuit of a xenophobic agenda.
Conclusion
The end of DALE weakens labor enforcement, silences immigrant workers, and leaves all workers more vulnerable to abuse. To protect workers in the absence of DALE, Congress must use its oversight power to ensure that workplace enforcement remains centered on workers. This means upholding existing protections for workers and their families and guaranteeing that information shared during the application process cannot be used against them.
Youth mobile response is a 24/7, police-free crisis intervention service designed to support young people and families in emotional or behavioral crises. Unlike the traditional “mobile crisis” model—which focuses mainly on youth with diagnosed psychiatric conditions—CLASP’s “mobile response” approach emphasizes youth-defined crises and support before, during, and after the critical moment. It is part of a broader crisis care continuum that includes crisis hotlines, stabilization centers, peer services, and short-term crisis residential options.
Kids First Maryland: Elevating Policy, Practice and Possibility for Children
Join advocates, academics, researchers, funders and policymakers for a powerful, daylong convening focused on putting children first in policy and practice. The Kids Frist Maryland convening will bring together various voices and sectors to explore bold ideas, share innovative research, and strengthen collective action that advances the well-being and futures of all children. Through interactive discussions, collaborative sessions and cross-sector dialogue, we’ll elevate what’s possible when children are truly at the center.
MorningPlenary (10:15-11:15am)
“Federal Policy in Focus: Shaping the Future for Children and Families” moderated by Brandi Slaughter
Federal policy decisions—from fiscal priorities to immigration regulations—have profound and lasting effects on the health, well-being and opportunities available to children and families across the country. This dynamic plenary session brings together leading national voices working at the intersection of policy, advocacy and research to examine how recent and upcoming federal actions are shaping outcomes for kids.
Whitney Tucker, Director of State Fiscal Policy Research at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Bruce Lesley, President and CEO of First Focus
Wendy Cervantes, Director of Immigration and Immigrant Families at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
This statement can be attributed to Wendy Chun-Hoon, executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Washington, D.C., October 1, 2025 – After Congress failed to pass a budget for Fiscal Year 2026 by the September 30 deadline, the federal government has shut down. Budgets are moral documents, and Congress should be focused on funding the government in a way that supports children, workers, families, and communities across the country. This includes extending programs that continue to make health care affordable for millions and ensuring that children and families receive the assistance they’re eligible for and need to thrive.
Voters across the country elect their Members of Congress and entrust them to do their jobs. The most basic function of Congress is to pass a budget each year. In a functioning government, this budget would be free from interference by a presidential administration. Instead, the administration is manufacturing chaos and dysfunction to continue to weaken the institutions families rely on to survive.
As conversation and work continue around passing an agreement to fund the government, CLASP’s focus remains on communities being pushed to the margin, workers paid low wages, children, immigrants, communities of color, and people and families living on low incomes.Their safety, security, and well-being should not be held hostage by a dysfunctional government.
Updated April 2, 2025, by Priya Pandey; Spanish version added September 2025 (see link below)
Originally published in 2019 by Rebecca Ullrich and updated in February 2022 by Alejandra Londono Gomez
Early childhood programs play an important role in the lives of young children and their families. But in our current political climate, families across the country are questioning whether it’s safe to attend or enroll.
In January 2025, the Trump Administration rescinded the Biden Administration’s guidelines for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection enforcement actions in certain “protected areas.” Immigration enforcement actions had previously been restricted at or near these locations, which include early childhood programs such as licensed child care, preschool, pre-kindergarten, and Head Start programs.
In response, we have updated “A Guide to Creating ‘Safe Space’ Policies for Early Childhood Programs,” which gives practitioners, advocates, and policymakers information and resources to design and implement “safe space” policies that safeguard early childhood programs against immigration enforcement, as well as protect families’ safety and privacy. The guide also includes sample policy text that early childhood providers can adapt for their programs.
EXCERPT from letter to the editor by Wendy Cervantes:
“Immigration actions cause long-lasting harm and trauma for children. That’s true whether the Department of Homeland Security separates families, as was the case in The Post’s story; removes them together and sends them back to potential harm, in some cases regardless of the children’s citizenship status; detains them together in inhumane conditions; or even reunites them after forced separation.”
The thread between parent and child should be one of love and stability. But too often, substance use tears at that thread until it frays. Sometimes the fraying goes beyond repair, leaving behind wounds and loss that no one can fix.
This crisis hits home for me. The generational cycle of addiction shaped my life. While I managed to find a path forward, it wasn’t because there was a system of resources and support in place. I survived — but I can’t say the same for people I love, or for countless others across this country.
Recovery Is About Families, Not Just Individuals
When we talk about substance use, we often focus on the individual — their journey, their choices, and their healing. But for mothers, recovery goes far beyond just them. Substance use impacts the entire family. A mother’s journey to recovery is deeply tied to her children, her family, and her community. Without recovery support, trauma seeps between generations like water through cracked foundations, weakening structures that might have otherwise held strong.
Consider two families.
In one, a mother seeks help. She is ready to recover, but does not have access to programming that allows her to stay with her children. There are waitlists. She’s told that programs in her community have been cut back due to lack of funding. Defeated, she tries to hold her family together while struggling alone. Her son grows up carrying the weight of his mother’s pain, internalizing the instability, the stigma, and the silence that follows substance use. Years later, the son turns to substances to cope — and he doesn’t survive his battle. His death represents the loss of a brilliant young man who never got the chance to graduate, walk down the aisle, or become a father — he never had the opportunity to truly thrive. He was one of more than 80,000 people who lost their lives to drug overdoses in 2024.
In another family, a mother enters a treatment program that allows her to keep custody of her children. For the first time, she feels supported rather than punished. She receives counseling, housing support, and guidance from other mothers who’ve walked a similar path. Her children are also welcomed into the process, given therapy and space to process their emotions instead of silently carrying them. Together, the family begins to heal and learns how to overcome the trauma that fueled generations of substance use and pain. By the time the mother completes her program, the family has grown stronger, closer, and more resilient — living proof of what’s possible when recovery embraces the whole family.
The Ripple Effect of Losing Support
In 2023, approximately 19 million children in the United States lived with a parent or primary caregiver struggling with substance use; that’s roughly one in four children. Even more heartbreaking, a child growing up in a home with substance use is eight times more likely to develop an addiction than a child who is growing up in a home free of addiction. This highlights a clear intergenerational cycle of addiction, showing how the cycle repeats when families don’t get the support they need.
When a mother or other caregiver in recovery can’t get the help they need — whether that’s counseling, child care during treatment, peer mentorship, or safe housing — the impact doesn’t stop with them. The consequences ripple outward, shaping the lives of their children and even future generations. For children, this often looks like persistent anxiety or depression, behavioral disruptions or trouble in school, and deep feelings of neglect or abandonment. The effects can linger for years, shaping mental health, relationships, and opportunities well into adulthood.
Children whose mothers lack access to recovery support are more likely to experience housing instability, food insecurity, and trauma. These early hardships not only cause immediate harm but also set the stage for poor health, educational setbacks, and cycles of poverty that are incredibly difficult to break. This is why recovery support must extend beyond the parent — it must embrace the entire family.
The Disproportionate Harm to Black Families
For Black mothers, the stakes are even higher. The child welfare system disproportionately targets Black families, often under the guise of “protection,” but too often mirroring tactics rooted in slavery: separating children from their mothers, weakening family bonds, and undermining the stability of Black households.
Enslaved Black women were denied the right to raise their own children, a deliberate act to dismantle family structures and maintain control. When a Black mother faces substance use challenges, the system is more likely to remove her children rather than provide the support she needs to recover while keeping her family intact. Black children are two to three times more likely to be separated from their families than white children.
This was my own reality. And to make matters worse, after separating families, the system does very little to follow up with the child or parent to ensure their needs are met, their mental health is cared for, and they are not left carrying invisible wounds for years to come.
Policy decisions must be made with care, recognizing their impact not only on individuals but on children, extended families, and entire communities. The conditions we see today in many Black and brown neighborhoods — violence, police surveillance, poor health outcomes, inadequate housing, and limited opportunities — are not the result of individual failings. They are the predictable outcomes of intentional policies and decades of disinvestment. Ending dedicated funding for substance use programs would only intensify these harms, stripping away one of the few pathways to healing and family stability.
What Recovery for Mothers Should Look Like
To create real change, we must invest in a system of care that truly supports recovery and breaks intergenerational cycles of addiction. This means funding and expanding:
Comprehensive, family-centered treatment that allows women to heal without losing custody of their children.
Safe, stable housing that is affordable and located near treatment and support services.
Access to child care during treatment and recovery programs, so mothers don’t have to choose between healing and caregiving.
Peer recovery support led by women with lived experience, who can provide guidance and empathy and reduce stigma.
Culturally responsive care and professionals who address racial inequities and center the needs of Black women and families.
Targeted support for children and youth, ensuring they learn healthy coping mechanisms, build resilience, and receive opportunities to heal as they navigate the impacts of substance use in their families.
Family therapy for parents, children, and extended relatives, designed to strengthen relationships, repair trust, and end intergenerational cycles of addiction.
Research and policy solutions that explicitly connect substance use to mental health and trauma, with a focus on historical and generational trauma as a driver of substance misuse. This includes building a workforce of professionals trained to explore, address, and heal trauma at its core.
The Path Forward
We cannot afford to go backward. Too many lives are on the line. That’s why it’s essential to protect and strengthen funding dedicated to substance use prevention, treatment, and long-term recovery support and services. These resources ensure that people — especially those without insurance — can access treatment, prevention programs, and recovery support. Disrupting these funding streams would be devastating not only to mothers but also to the generations connected to them.
Dedicated and stable funding for treatment, prevention, and recovery services doesn’t just support individuals in recovery, it also creates a lifeline for their children. It ensures families can stay together, heal together, and rebuild together. Without that funding, too many families are left trapped in cycles of trauma, loss, and grief. Ending funding support for substance use deepens racial inequities, perpetuates historical harms, and robs future generations of stability and opportunity.
Instead, we should be expanding investments in family-based recovery models and holding systems accountable for keeping families together. The two families introduced in the beginning stories run parallel, but the outcomes couldn’t be more different. The difference wasn’t the mother’s choices or love — it was access. One family met closed doors while the other found open arms.
Recovery is not just about surviving substance use. For mothers and those they love, it’s about building a future where healing is possible, families are whole, and every generation has the chance to thrive.
For me, this truth carries the weight of my brother, David. He was the son who never got the chance to thrive. His absence is a constant reminder of what’s at stake — the fragile threads that hold families together, and how every policy decision and funding choice determines whether those threads hold or unravel. My heart goes out to every frayed thread that has ended in loss due to substance use. This grief and absence ripple through families, felt for generations to come — a smile no longer there, a presence no longer felt.
The fight for healing and wholeness for families navigating substance use must continue.
Dedicated to “Lil David.” May you rest in eternal peace.
By Blake Ellis,Melanie Hicken, Anna-Maja Rappard and Kyung Lah
(EXCERPT)
“It’s literally a kid’s worst nightmare having someone come take your parents in the middle of the night,” said Wendy Cervantes, a longtime immigration policy expert who has worked with Democratic and Republican lawmakers to help craft federal policies that protect the children of immigrants. “No matter the outcome, you are turning a kid’s life upside down.”
