CLASP joined an amicus brief filed with the United States Supreme Court in Trump v. Barbara challenging Executive Order 14160, which seeks to end birthright citizenship. The brief outlines the immediate and long-term harms to babies and children if birthright citizenship is eliminated. It was co-authored by Persyn Law & Policy on behalf of First Focus on Children, CLASP, Children Now, the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, and child health and development experts.
As someone who worked in those early days of the DACA program to ease fears and encourage youth to apply, it breaks my heart to see the trust they put into the process betrayed more than a decade later,” said Wendy Cervantes, a director at The Center for Law and Social Policy. “It’s simply wrong, like setting a trap for young people who have grown up here and have done everything possible to be able to remain in the country they call home.”
By Suma Setty, Kaelin Rapport, and Renato Rocha
The purpose of the Illinois Accountability Commission (IAC) is to investigate, document, and disseminate findings and recommendations related to the conduct and impact of federal agents during “Operation Midway Blitz” throughout the Chicagoland area.
CLASP submitted a report to the IAC that uplifts findings from two interviews with Chicagoland area early care providers, highlights best practices to mitigate the harm of immigration enforcement, and offers federal and state policy solutions. Interviews in Illinois were a part of a larger 7-state project to understand how current immigration policies and practices are impacting immigrant families with young children (ages 0-5) and the community providers who serve them.
By Wendy Chun-Hoon
Last night’s State of the Union address was the latest reminder of how the Trump Administration is devastating the lives of immigrants, workers, LGBTQ+ communities, children, families, and people of color by pushing them further to the margins. Last month, CLASP highlighted just a sampling of the administration’s actions and executive orders that target immigration, child care and early education, nutrition, economic supports, health care and mental health, housing, higher education, and workers’ rights. Trump demonstrated in his address that he plans to expand that 2025 playbook of destruction.
Despite Trump’s rhetoric about a “roaring economy,” this past year has been defined by cruelty, chaos, and a deliberate dismantling of the public benefit programs that families count on. His administration has manufactured crises, cut essential programs, and turned government agencies meant to serve all of us into tools of punishment and fear.
Massive Cuts to Public Benefit Programs
We heard lots of claims last night about the economy, but the ugly truth is that Trump has gutted the very programs that keep families healthy and fed. Last July, he signed H.R. 1, a sweeping law that will slash $793 billion from Medicaid and nearly $200 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) over 10 years—the largest cuts to those programs in our nation’s history. Trump bragged that he “lifted” 2.4 million Americans off of food assistance. To be clear, this translates to 2.4 million people being dropped from SNAP in an average month. And as a result of H.R.1, millions of families have already begun losing coverage or benefits. These cuts will result in:
And while he vowed in his address to protect Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, H.R. 1 included policies that would harm these programs.
Even the so-called “Trump Accounts,” which create $1,000 savings accounts for babies, are a mirage. They’ll widen the racial wealth gap by allowing wealthy families to enjoy the full benefits of the accounts, putting them even farther ahead of children in families who can’t afford to make added contributions to the initial amount.
The Trump Administration Has and Will Continue to Manufacture Crises
We can’t forget the manufactured government shutdown of late 2025, which was the longest in U.S. history. It wasn’t just a political stunt; it was an act of sabotage that threatened millions of families with the prospect of losing the SNAP and WIC benefits that allow them to keep food on the table. In addition, thousands of families who depend on Head Start faced closed doors at their centers, with many more facing the real possibility of closures. Moreover, the shutdown forced health insurance premiums to skyrocket after Congress let Affordable Care Act subsidies expire. When Trump boasts about a “turnaround for the ages,” remember: his austerity didn’t come at the expense of billionaires. It came at the expense of families.
The president continues to follow the playbook of bringing up fraud, even claiming last night that eliminating fraud would “balance the budget overnight.” We should take factual instances of fraud seriously and address them. But he’s using these allegations as a pretext to cut basic needs programs, demonize immigrants and families with low incomes, and as another strategy for taking away the help people need to care for themselves and their families.
Cruel Attacks on Immigrants
The most vivid example of the cruelty of Trump’s second term has been his relentless assault on immigrant families. Within weeks of taking office last year, his administration had unleashed indiscriminate enforcement actions, turning routine traffic stops into family separations and deportation threats. He reinstated family detention, removed restrictions on conducting immigration enforcement at sensitive locations like schools and hospitals, reopened the notorious family detention facility in Dilley, Texas, and is attempting to deny birthright citizenship—a direct attack on the 14th Amendment.
In his State of the Union, Trump claimed these measures were about “restoring safety.” But the only thing they’ve restored is fear. Mixed-status families are living with constant anxiety. Teachers have watched children burst into tears when a classmate’s parent fails to show up at pickup. Immigrant communities are skipping doctor’s appointments and food pantries because they’re terrified that they will be detained. And to be clear, this indiscriminate and reckless immigration agenda is harming everyone. Administration officials are profiling and assaulting and detaining citizens and immigrants alike in communities across the country.
Disregard for Workers, People Pushed to the Margins
Trump has also undermined the rights of workers and students at every turn. His administration axed diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs across federal agencies and rescinded rules that made workplaces safe. The Department of Education reclassified nursing and social-work degrees as “non-professional,” making students ineligible for essential loan programs.
Although the president loves to describe himself as “pro-worker,” the thousands of laid-off federal workers and the millions of people now at risk of losing child care and housing support would disagree. In fact, throughout the longest State of the Union address ever, Trump said nothing to address the struggles everyday families face, for instance failing to mention the child care affordability crisis even once.
Fortifying the State of OUR Union
The State of the Union is supposed to be a moment for the nation to take stock and see who we are as a society. But Trump’s address was a work of fiction. The real state of our union is fragile, strained, and deeply unequal, not because families failed to work hard enough, but because the government failed to protect them.
Advocates who care about people who have been marginalized, along with everyday Americans have a choice in the months ahead: to accept this cruelty as normal or to demand better. We can start by amplifying the truth. Share reports like CLASP’s timeline of harm. Support local food banks, mutual-aid networks, and immigrant-rights groups doing the work that Washington refuses to do. And call on legislators to support policies that help, not undermine, our communities.
We must all fight because the state of our union—the one rooted in compassion, justice, and community—depends on what we do next.
By Alyssa Fortner
The 2026 theme of Black History Month, A Century of Black History Commemorations, urges us to tell an accurate and inclusive history of Black people’s role in building and shaping the very systems that tried to marginalize them. As the Association for the Study of African American Life and History reminds us, “Black history’s value is not its contribution to mainstream historical narratives, but its resonance in the lives of Black people.” This resonance is particularly evident in the child care sector; a system built on the exploited labor of Black women that continues to reproduce inequities for Black early educators, families, and children today. As the current presidential administration continues to undermine child care and early education, these pre-existing inequities and compounding disparities that have disproportionately harmed Black communities have only gotten worse.
As reiterated in the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center’s new report, The History of Child Care Policies, investments in and the perceived value of child care have long been shaped by beliefs about who should work, whose caregiving labor is valued, and how children of different backgrounds are expected to be cared for. These beliefs, and subsequent implementation of policies borne from them, are deeply racialized, gendered, and classist. Under chattel slavery, enslaved Black women were forced to take care of white children in place of their own. After emancipation, low-paid domestic or agricultural work were some of the only jobs available to Black women. These professions were then systemically excluded from labor protection laws. Today, these historical patterns show up in persistent racial pay disparities and limited advancement opportunities for Black women within the child care workforce.
Outside of the care workforce, Black families have faced inequities in accessing and utilizing public assistance programs. Throughout the 1900s, public benefit programs advanced narratives about the deservingness of mothers that disproportionately stigmatized and harmed Black families. One example is the enduring “welfare queen” stereotype, which portrays Black women as negligent mothers who bear children to exploit public benefits. Though decades old and rooted in Southern segregationist attempts to send welfare recipients north, this harmful trope continues to influence public and policymaker perceptions by reinforcing the false assumption that Black women misuse public programs and shouldn’t receive them. Narratives like this persist despite child care policies moving away from overtly biased language.
Now, eligibility rules, work requirements, inadequate program funding, and administrative burdens reinforce assumptions about who deserves support and how they get it. Due to the intersectional identity of Black women with low incomes, these barriers still make accessing child care subsidies and other assistance especially challenging. While programs like the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) remain an important resource for participating families, inequities persist in who can access CCDF, generally and by race and ethnicity, due both to these barriers and to broader systemic economic inequity. Therefore, even without explicit racial exclusions, programs are still designed in ways that shape those who ultimately benefit from them and who do not. This continues to result in a system that perpetually fails to truly support Black families whose ancestors laid the foundation of the child care sector.
The harms of these inequities extend beyond access to care and care providers. To this day, Black children continue to be harmed by the systemic racism and anti-Blackness that persists through harsh discipline practices in education settings, including in child care and early education. Black children face suspension, expulsion, or being pushed out of programs more often than their peers. These inequitable practices echo the violence and control forced upon Black families under slavery and the Jim Crow era and continue today through the policing of Black children in care and educational settings.
The ingrained inequities in the child care and early education sector are intergenerational. Black early educators are underpaid and undervalued, Black families face barriers to accessing stable and safe care, and Black children face disproportionate discipline and exclusion practices. These present-day realities are born from racist, anti-Black systems that have never been transformed in ways that acknowledge and remedy these harms.
This Black History Month calls us to commemorate the deep roots and ongoing consequences of inequity in the child care sector. Doing so means not only recognizing the essential labor of Black women in the field but also understanding how disparities in compensation, access, and discipline reflect a history of oppression that adapts across generations, ensuring that systemic barriers continue to affect Black early educators, families, and children today.
To respectfully commemorate these inequities, the field must go beyond acknowledgment and take meaningful action to transform the child care system so that it works for everyone who provides, upholds, or relies on it, no matter their background. This action must center the voices of Black communities, confront the harms caused by racial, gender, and class inequities, and embed equity into every facet of the sector. The long-overdue transformation we need also must be supported by meaningful federal investment that is robust and equitable to allow for these necessary changes such as higher wages; good jobs with meaningful benefits; universal access; and quality, consistent, and stable care for children. This is the way to create a system that no longer perpetuates harm against the most vulnerable and truly honors the labor and care that has built and sustained it.
For a detailed analysis of the history of child care policies and that history’s impact on equitable implementation, please see the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center’s new report.
By Ashley Burnside and Jesse Fairbanks
Michael and Susan Dell recently announced a $6.25 billion donation to the new “Trump Accounts” for children up to age 10 living in zip codes with median incomes of under $150,000. Media outlets have heralded the Dell family’s generosity, but this donation—and Trump Accounts generally—won’t end wealth inequality for families with low incomes.
Trump Accounts are tax-advantaged savings accounts seeded with $1,000 from the federal government for babies born between 2025 and 2028. Families are eligible regardless of their income, but children must have a Social Security number. Families or employers can invest up to $5,000 per year, and government entities and nonprofits can make additional contributions. At eighteen, the child can make withdrawals for expenses like college tuition or a down payment on a house. Unlike 529 savings accounts, money from Trump Accounts is taxable, as are contributions.
This policy sounds promising because it symbolizes an investment in America’s children. However, Trump Accounts effectively make the rich richer and widen wealth gaps.
Apart from the initial $1,000, the federal government makes no additional contributions to the accounts. Families with low-wage jobs will be less likely to work for an employer that offers up to $2,500 in annual contributions because these employers generally offer fewer benefits. These families may also struggle to invest in the accounts personally, while higher-income families—or their relatives such as grandparents with generational wealth—can take advantage of this option.
When children turn 18, families who contributed the annual maximum could have an account of more than $190,000, while children who only received the initial $1,000 could have an account as low as $4,000. Young adults with the means to leave the account untouched because of other savings can allow their Trump Account to mature as a traditional individual retirement account, furthering the wealth divide. These children could turn $190,000 in their Trump Account into an estimated $4.8 million by the time they’re 60.
The Dells’ contribution is income-targeted geographically, in that only children living in counties with a median income below $150,000 will receive the $250. Their donation will miss families with low incomes who live in wealthy areas. Furthermore, without additional investment, the small contribution of $250 could grow to just $450-$900 depending on the child’s age. That’s not generational wealth. Future donors could better target their donations by setting a lower qualifying median income threshold to provide a larger one-time contribution.
Trump Accounts are not designed to help families with low incomes build wealth. The accounts don’t allow philanthropic and government donors to income-target by picking recipients based on family income. Thus, donors like the Dell family who are dedicated to narrowing wealth gaps must use imperfect geographic measures to target their contributions. The Dell’s donation could have better served children without wealth if federal guidance allowed them to provide a greater one-time investment to families with extremely low incomes. Federal guidance could also allow contributions to certain populations that face economic barriers, such as foster youth.
Connecticut’s state baby bond program is a promising example of income-targeting. Babies there born on or after July 1, 2023, and eligible for Medicaid are automatically enrolled in a state-managed trust fund that’s seeded up to $3,200. Because a child must receive Medicaid to be eligible, the program is income-targeted. State officials estimate over 15,000 children are enrolled annually and set up to receive $11,000 to $24,000 as young adults.
Trump Accounts aren’t baby bonds because their goals differ. Baby bonds aspire to reduce wealth gaps, especially between white and Black people living in the U.S., by seeding more money into the accounts of children from families experiencing poverty. Through Trump Accounts, conservative policymakers aim to invest in “a new generation of capitalists” without regard for how the current design might worsen wealth gaps.
It’s promising to see a national, bipartisan conversation about promoting wealth-building for children, but Trump Accounts fail too many children. By design, the Trump Administration has limited the ability of private and public donors to target their investments by family income. Donors committed to closing wealth gaps should instead consider investing in state and local initiatives with positive outcomes for children that allow for precise income-targeting, such as New Mexico’s baby bonds program or local guaranteed income pilots. To create a country where all children have generational wealth, lawmakers and donors need to invest in cash programs that effectively target families based on income and wealth.
In a podcast produced and hosted by First Focus on Children, Wendy Cervantes joins in an episode called, “Wendy Cervantes Demands Better Protections for Immigrant Kids.” She discusse how immigration enforcement policies are affecting children in immigrant families, with a focus on the fear, instability, and the lasting impact these policies can have on children’s development and well-being. She also talked about the broader effects on schools, communities, and family life, and why stronger protections are needed to keep children safe and supported. Watch or listen as she joined First Focus on Children’s podcast to dive deep on these issues.
CLASP submitted this testimony on HB 1870 HD 1, Relating to Protected Community Locations, on February 13, 2026 to the Hawai’i House Committee on Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs. In the testimony, CLASP supports the bill, which would establish statewide standards limiting state and county participation in civil immigration enforcement in or near protected community locations. The testimony outlines the impact of heightened immigration enforcement on children and families, including effects on school attendance, early care and education, access to health care, and child mental health. If enacted, HB 1870 HD 1 could help protect children in immigrant families, including the more than 1 in 4 children in Hawai’i who live with at least one immigrant parent, and mitigate the harms associated with immigration enforcement.
Afrofuturism & Systems Change: Reclaiming Mental Models for Child Well-Being offers a powerful framework for advancing justice by transforming the mental models that shape systems, policies, and narratives. Led by CLASP alum Alycia Hardy at the National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI), the paper centers Afrofuturism, collective imagination, and lived experience as essential to building liberatory systems. Teon Hayes and Parker Gilkesson Davis were consulted as contributors to the paper.
By Rachel Wilensky
On February 3, 2026, Congress passed an amendment to the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026, funding all federal programs with the exception of the Department of Homeland Security for a full year. President Trump subsequently signed the bill into law. The law offers small increases for many nondefense discretionary programs, including an additional $85 million for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). This increase was incredibly important, given the challenging fiscal environment states will face due to the cuts made to vital public benefit programs in H.R. 1.
CCDBG is a critical support for families with low incomes who, without access to assistance, would likely be unable to afford their current child care arrangements. However, due to limited federal funding, child care assistance funded through CCDBG and other federal sources only reached 15 percent of eligible children in 2021, the most recent year that data is available.1 The annual appropriations process is an important opportunity to increase federal investments in programs that respond to greater need and ensure funding keeps up with rising inflation.
As concerns about economic recovery, unemployment, and inflation persist, significant and sustained increases in annual discretionary funding remain a critical support. And, given the fragile nature of the child care sector caused in part by decades of insufficient federal funding, the need for long-term and sustainable increases for child care remains ever present.
Furthermore, recent actions by the administration to freeze or delay funding for child care and threaten programs like Head Start, which are a vital part of the child care and early education ecosystem, make this moment particularly volatile.2 Additionally, this $85 million increase for CCDBG does not keep pace with inflation, falling over $160 million short of what’s necessary to ensure there are enough resources to serve all children currently accessing care through CCDBG.3 This comes on top of stagnant funding in fiscal year (FY) 2025. Ultimately, this means that states will not be able to sustain their current costs, which may result in serving fewer children. Moreover, Congress’s massive cuts to food assistance, Medicaid, and other vital programs to pay for harsh immigration policies and offer tax cuts for billionaires and corporations will continue to harm children, families, and child care providers. These are, in many cases, the very same families impacted across numerous programs. As Congress engages in the FY27 appropriations process, it is essential that they protect programs families rely on and fight for investments that align with need, like urgent investments in child care.4 The following table provides each state’s estimated distribution of grant year (GY) 2026 annual discretionary funds.5
For questions, please contact Rachel Wilensky at rwilensky@clasp.org.
|
State |
Estimates of GY2026 Discretionary Allocations[i] |
GY2025 Discretionary Allocations |
Estimated Increase from GY2025 to GY 2026 |
|
Alabama |
$172,877,730 |
$171,213,823 |
$1,663,907 |
|
Alaska |
$15,503,527 |
$15,354,309 |
$149,218 |
|
Arizona |
$181,205,597 |
$179,461,536 |
$1,744,061 |
|
Arkansas |
$102,172,155 |
$101,188,772 |
$983,383 |
|
California |
$744,676,980 |
$737,509,641 |
$7,167,339 |
|
Colorado |
$92,557,430 |
$91,666,587 |
$890,843 |
|
Connecticut |
$64,045,803 |
$63,429,377 |
$616,426 |
|
Delaware |
$23,822,438 |
$23,593,153 |
$229,285 |
|
District of Columbia |
$13,539,118 |
$13,408,807 |
$130,311 |
|
Florida |
$537,802,845 |
$532,626,620 |
$5,176,225 |
|
Georgia |
$337,176,144 |
$333,930,904 |
$3,245,240 |
|
Hawaii |
$29,104,960 |
$28,824,832 |
$280,128 |
|
Idaho |
$45,307,035 |
$44,870,966 |
$436,069 |
|
Illinois |
$270,465,225 |
$267,862,062 |
$2,603,163 |
|
Indiana |
$200,310,276 |
$198,382,337 |
$1,927,939 |
|
Iowa |
$85,385,918 |
$84,564,099 |
$821,819 |
|
Kansas |
$78,936,160 |
$78,176,418 |
$759,742 |
|
Kentucky |
$173,920,188 |
$172,246,248 |
$1,673,940 |
|
Louisiana |
$168,210,656 |
$166,591,668 |
$1,618,988 |
|
Maine |
$23,662,638 |
$23,434,891 |
$227,747 |
|
Maryland |
$123,009,257 |
$121,825,322 |
$1,183,935 |
|
Massachusetts |
$118,062,874 |
$116,926,547 |
$1,136,327 |
|
Michigan |
$257,523,841 |
$255,045,235 |
$2,478,606 |
|
Minnesota |
$120,482,527 |
$119,322,911 |
$1,159,616 |
|
Mississippi |
$109,861,817 |
$108,804,423 |
$1,057,394 |
|
Missouri |
$153,827,353 |
$152,346,801 |
$1,480,552 |
|
Montana |
$22,381,572 |
$22,166,155 |
$215,417 |
|
Nebraska |
$54,127,674 |
$53,606,708 |
$520,966 |
|
Nevada |
$75,004,363 |
$74,282,464 |
$721,899 |
|
New Hampshire |
$16,311,097 |
$16,154,107 |
$156,990 |
|
New Jersey |
$162,953,218 |
$161,384,832 |
$1,568,386 |
|
New Mexico |
$65,227,285 |
$64,599,488 |
$627,797 |
|
New York |
$409,236,449 |
$405,297,645 |
$3,938,804 |
|
North Carolina |
$281,501,322 |
$278,791,939 |
$2,709,383 |
|
North Dakota |
$16,216,500 |
$16,060,420 |
$156,080 |
|
Ohio |
$283,210,084 |
$280,484,254 |
$2,725,830 |
|
Oklahoma |
$123,947,702 |
$122,754,735 |
$1,192,967 |
|
Oregon |
$78,850,827 |
$78,091,907 |
$758,920 |
|
Pennsylvania |
$274,267,735 |
$271,627,973 |
$2,639,762 |
|
Puerto Rico |
$60,006,694 |
$59,429,144 |
$577,550 |
|
Rhode Island |
$19,909,864 |
$19,718,236 |
$191,628 |
|
South Carolina |
$160,049,619 |
$158,509,179 |
$1,540,440 |
|
South Dakota |
$20,187,247 |
$19,992,950 |
$194,297 |
|
Tennessee |
$192,923,197 |
$191,066,357 |
$1,856,840 |
|
Texas |
$995,925,511 |
$986,339,965 |
$9,585,546 |
|
Utah |
$84,602,064 |
$83,787,789 |
$814,275 |
|
Vermont |
$10,212,916 |
$10,114,619 |
$98,297 |
|
Virginia |
$189,684,896 |
$187,859,224 |
$1,825,672 |
|
Washington |
$134,040,373 |
$132,750,266 |
$1,290,107 |
|
West Virginia |
$56,788,709 |
$56,242,131 |
$546,578 |
|
Wisconsin |
$127,268,052 |
$126,043,127 |
$1,224,925 |
|
Wyoming |
$9,623,949 |
$9,531,321 |
$92,628 |
|
United States |
$8,831,387,000[ii] |
$8,746,387,000[iii] |
$85,000,000[iv] |
1 Nina Chien, “Estimates of Child Care Eligibility & Receipt for Fiscal Year 2021,” Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, September 2024, https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/a91fd97aa80b53fa52a52d38cd323509/cy2021-child-care-subsidy-eligibility.pdf.
2 Shira Small, Rachel Wilensky, and Stephanie Schmit, How the First Year of the Trump Administration Undermined Child Care and Early Education, Center for Law and Social Policy, January 2026, https://www.clasp.org/publications/fact-sheet/trump-admin-undermine-child-care-early-ed-programs-25/.
3 CLASP’s estimates are based on the Congressional Budget Office’s The Budget and Economic Outlook 2025-2035, published in January 2025. CLASP takes an average of the inflation rates looking at the change from year to year for both the Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers (CPI-u) and the Employment Cost Index (ECI) to conduct our estimate. These rates can be found in “Table C-1: CBO’s Economic Projections for Calendar Years 2025 to 2035,” Congressional Budget Office, January 2025, https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-01/60870-Outlook-2025.pdf.
4 Fiscal Year (FY) refers to the period from October 1 through September 30 during which states and territories may spend funds awarded in the current and prior years. Grant Year (GY) refers to the year the funds were awarded, although states and territories may liquidate some Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) funding streams in later fiscal years. Note: CCDF refers to the federal funding sources for child care and is used interchangeably with CCDBG in this fact sheet.
5 CCDBG annual discretionary funds are distributed based on three main factors. The first two factors compare the ratio of the number of children in a state to the number of children in the country within the following categories: the number of children under five and the number of children who receive free or reduced priced lunch. The other factor makes a comparison of the three-year national per capita income with the three-year average state per capital income.
6 The state discretionary funding distributions are derived from “GY2024 CCDF Allocations (Based on Appropriations),” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, current as of April 10, 2024, https://www.acf.hhs.gov/occ/data/gy-2024-ccdf-allocations-based-appropriations. Actual amounts may differ due to the Health & Human Services Secretary’s authority and discretion in set-aside funding and re-allocation of previous year’s resources.
7 This total includes funding for tribes and territories, as well as research, technical assistance, administration, hotlines, and websites in addition to the state funding outlined in the table. As a result, this total exceeds the sum of the state distribution.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.