by KOMO News Staff
Excerpt:
“We commend Representative Jayapal for introducing Orlin’s Law to ensure that families are not needlessly separated due to immigration enforcement and that parents are able to make decisions about what happens to their children,” said Wendy Cervantes, director of immigration and immigrant families of the Center for Law and Social Policy and director of the Children Thrive Action Network.
“The bottom line is that Orlin should never have been separated from his loving mother, and no child should live in fear of losing a parent. Children have suffered some of the direst consequences of the Trump Administration’s reckless mass deportation campaign, including CLASP’s research that documents how our youngest kids are having their childhoods taken away, with the terror spreading across entire communities. We call on Congress to pass Orlin’s Law to mitigate the harm of immigration raids on children and to hold the Administration accountable by demanding that the Department of Homeland Security release comprehensive data on the number of children impacted by immigration enforcement and to follow its own policy to ensure detained parents can make decisions about their children’s care,” Cervantes continued.
Note: This article was republished by more than 50 other media outlets nationwide.
This statement can be attributed to Wendy Chun-Hoon, president and executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Washington, D.C., July 2, 2026–July 4th will mark one year since Congress passed and Donald Trump signed into law the Budget Reconciliation Act of 2025. Also known as H.R.1, the bill included the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in the programs’ histories and prioritized funding to separate immigrant families and give tax breaks to the wealthy. As families continue to deal with the rising costs of living, they are now also left without health care and food assistance.
H.R.1 slashed nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid and Affordable Care Act Marketplace tax credits. More than 1 million people have dropped Marketplace coverage and more than 10 million are projected to lose Medicaid coverage over the next decade. The bill’s impact on food assistance is already being felt, as SNAP participation has declined in every state since H.R.1 became law. Based on the latest available data, SNAP participation has fallen by more than 4 million people, or roughly 10 percent; and in the 12 states with available child-level data, more than 700,000 children have lost SNAP food assistance–all because the majority in Congress and the administration prioritized billionaires over families. We expect these harms to grow as states fully implement new eligibility restrictions and other measures in response to future state cost-sharing requirements.
These numbers do not reflect a decline in hunger or reduction in poverty. They represent millions of families who continue to struggle with medical bills, rising food costs, and economic hardship but are now being pushed out of the very programs designed to help them. And people who are technically eligible to keep Medicaid or food assistance will face significant new paperwork barriers, including more frequent Medicaid renewals that will make it harder to access the benefits they qualify for.
H.R.1 provided $170.7 billion in additional funding for immigration enforcement to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and carved out lawfully present immigrants from basic needs programs. This historic ballooning of immigration enforcement funding has turbocharged family separations and child and family detention, threatening child safety and well-being. An estimated 205,000 children,145,000 of whom are U.S. citizens, have experienced having a parent in detention. To make matters worse, these U.S. citizen children are also likely among those who are now losing access to the Child Tax Credit, at a time when they and their families are in most need of support. These changes will increase child poverty; and, building on the exclusions from the 2017 tax reforms that excluded eligibility for children without a Social Security number, affect nearly 4 million children. Moreover, the high level of disenrollment in SNAP and Medicaid is in part due to H.R.1’s exclusion of lawfully present immigrants, such as asylum seekers and refugees, as well as the chilling effect on people whose children are likely eligible but are disenrolling because they are concerned about their participation being used against them in immigration proceedings.
The DHS funding granted through H.R.1 is enabling immigration actions that are actively endangering our nation’s children. At least 79 children have been tear gassed or pepper sprayed and over 6,200 children have seen the inside of an immigration detention camp, where they experienced disruptions to their education, poor nutrition, and delayed medical care. The fear and uncertainty is affecting not only the children directly impacted by these policies, but also their classmates, teachers, and neighbors. The harms of H.R.1 will reverberate for generations.
Policymakers should invest in policies that support family unity and actually center community well-being, such as community-led food systems that keep families fed, regardless of political shifts. Congress must rescind the harm caused by H.R.1 and restore access to health coverage, food assistance, and economic supports. Repairing this harm will require that Congress moves away from policies rooted in suspicion, punishment, and unsupported fraud narratives and instead advance policies grounded in evidence, dignity, and the realities families face.
Excerpt:
Experts stress that America has the resources to make life more affordable. And frequently, communities are fighting for those solutions themselves, from movements for student-debt cancellation or student loan forgiveness to tenants organizing to fight for affordable housing or needed repairs. Developing policy that pulls people out of survival mode has to be part of addressing affordability, according to Isha Weerasinghe, director of public benefits justice at the Center for Law and Social Policy. “We want to move forward, move above existing to thriving,” explains Weerasinghe. That means not just being in a place of paying to exist, or the stress of making ends meet, but being able to think about spending money on things you enjoy, too. “That seems very simplistic, but it’s so important,” said Weerasinghe. “Why can’t we all deserve that?”
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Right now, the country is experiencing high inflation, labor cuts, trade restrictions, and the devastation of H.R. 1. Weerasinghe and the CLASP team want to think about a public benefits system that is more inclusive. For example, while the team works on SNAP reform, they are also thinking about food sovereignty, or solutions that have worked for communities for centuries despite disinvestment. Weerasinghe stresses that expanded inclusivity also ensures that immigrants are able to access all benefits. Then, what supports that in terms of revenue is building strategies around tax benefits to improve the system, like the child tax credit or the earned income tax credit.
If more people are able to access resources, it means more buy-in to the system, which means more people can get the services they need. For example, Weerasinghe explained, if more people have access to Medicaid, and there were less restrictions on how providers were able to reimburse for their services, it means more money in the health care system. Or, take SNAP: When there are less people who are receiving SNAP, while food prices are going up, fewer people participating means less purchasing power. That, in turn, impacts small businesses as well as larger ones—and since it impacts their profits, it leads to job cuts, which will affect the economy overall. More inclusivity benefits the economy across the board.
For people like Theresa and her family, she knows firsthand how these policies could actually make life easier and more affordable. “Taxpayer money should be spent investing in the present and future of our country,” she said, “not gutting social programs to provide tax cuts for corporations and billionaires.”
“The purpose of social programs—a lot of them were built in the ’60s, in the time of the civil rights movement as well—they’re built as a bridge to ensure that people have access to services and to make sure that all people have an ability to survive, but also to thrive,” Weerasinghe adds. “I think we have somehow come back to square one with this, and we have forgotten the purpose of why those programs were built in the first place.”
By Lulit Shewan
May Day has always been grounded in a simple demand: workers should be able to go to work and return home safely. That demand carries particular weight this year. The scale of harm workers face remains high, and the conditions shaping that harm are shifting in ways that increase exposure and limit the systems meant to prevent it.
Risk is structured and disproportionate across the labor market. Latino workers experience the highest rates of fatal occupational injury, and Black workers also face elevated risks. Immigrant workers are overrepresented in industries with dangerous conditions, including construction, agriculture, warehousing, and manufacturing. Many workers in these sectors face barriers to reporting unsafe conditions, including language access, fear of retaliation, and immigration-related concerns. These factors shape who is most exposed to hazardous conditions and who is least protected when those conditions become dangerous.
Workplace harm is not limited to injuries or fatalities. Gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) are deeply embedded across low-wage and precarious work, shaping daily conditions of safety, dignity, and economic security. This includes sectors such as hospitality, domestic work, agriculture, and warehousing. Women—particularly Black women, immigrant women, and women in temporary roles—face heightened exposure to harassment, assault, and coercion on the job. Federal workplace safety frameworks provide limited proactive protections against these forms of harm. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) does not offer a comprehensive standard that addresses GBVH as a workplace safety issue, and enforcement mechanisms remain limited. These gaps leave workers without consistent tools for prevention or accountability.
The most recent AFL-CIO Death on the Job report documents the scale of loss. In 2024, 5,070 workers were killed in traumatic incidents on the job, and an estimated 135,000 more died from occupational diseases. This amounts to more than 380 deaths each day tied to workplace conditions. These figures align with patterns documented in prior years. Fatalities remain concentrated in construction, transportation, warehousing, agriculture, and manufacturing. The leading causes of death continue to include falls, motion strain, equipment-related injuries, and exposure to hazardous substances.
Safety standards exist for many of the most common hazards, particularly in construction and manufacturing, but failures in enforcement, inadequate training, production pressures, and gaps in accountability allow these risks to persist. These failures are tied to how safety protections are implemented and enforced across workplaces.
Recent workplace tragedies reflect these patterns. In April 2026, a worker at an Amazon fulfillment center in Troutdale, Oregon, collapsed and died inside the facility. Reports indicated that work continued in surrounding areas during the emergency response. In October 2025, an explosion at an explosives manufacturing plant in Tennessee killed 16 workers and revealed dozens of safety violations. Construction sites continue to see fatal trench collapses and falls, even with established federal standards designed to prevent them. These incidents reflect conditions in which known hazards remain present and safeguards are inconsistently applied. A large share of these deaths are widely understood to be preventable, even if there is no single comprehensive estimate that captures the exact proportion. The AFL-CIO has consistently pointed to enforcement gaps and employer noncompliance as central drivers of workplace fatalities, noting that many incidents occur in violation of existing standards. OSHA investigations routinely identify preventable hazards after fatal events, particularly in blue collar industries.
Policy decisions made over the past year are shaping how these risks are managed. OSHA’s recent revised Heat National Emphasis Program is reflective of this, narrowing the list of industries prioritized for heat-related inspections. This change comes as heat exposure intensifies across sectors where workers spend extended periods outdoors or in high-temperature environments, including those who work in agriculture, construction, delivery, or warehouses. These workers all face prolonged exposure to high temperatures, often without guaranteed access to water or shade. Federal data shows that heat-related fatalities are often undercounted or misclassified. A narrower enforcement scope reduces the likelihood that unsafe heat conditions will be identified during inspections.
Cuts to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) affect the federal government’s ability to track workplace hazards and develop updated safety recommendations. NIOSH plays a central role in identifying emerging risks, including heat exposure, chemical hazards, and evolving workplace technologies. Staffing and funding reductions affect data collection, field investigations, and the development of evidence-based guidance that informs OSHA standards.
Enforcement capacity continues to shape how safety protections function in practice. OSHA is responsible for overseeing millions of workplaces with a limited number of inspectors; indeed, inspection rates have not kept pace with the growth and complexity of industries such as warehousing and logistics. These sectors include large facilities employing hundreds or thousands of workers under tightly managed production systems. The number of federal OSHA inspectors dropped from 900 in 2022 to 853 in 2023, while the number of workers and workplaces under OSHA’s jurisdiction continues to grow. Current staffing remains below historical levels relative to the size of the workforce OSHA is tasked with protecting.
Employer practices play a defining role in this context. Production targets, algorithmic management systems, and staffing decisions influence how safety measures are applied. In warehouse settings, workers are often expected to maintain continuous output, which affects whether work is paused during emergencies and whether workers feel able to report unsafe conditions. In construction, subcontracting structures distribute responsibility across multiple entities, which complicates enforcement. In manufacturing, pressure to maintain production intersects with hazardous materials and machinery.
The cumulative effect is a workplace safety system with limited capacity to prevent harm under current conditions. Oversight is narrowing, research capacity is constrained, and enforcement remains limited relative to the scale of workplaces. Forms of harm that fall outside traditional regulatory frameworks, including GBVH, continue without consistent intervention.
Addressing these conditions requires sustained federal action. Expanding OSHA funding would increase inspection capacity and strengthen enforcement of existing standards. Reinvesting in NIOSH would support the research infrastructure needed to identify emerging hazards and inform updated protections. Establishing a comprehensive federal heat standard would provide consistent safeguards across industries where exposure is widespread. Legislative action can clarify accountability within subcontracting structures and strengthen protections for workers who report unsafe conditions. Addressing GBVH at work requires integrating it into workplace safety frameworks through enforceable standards and proactive prevention measures.
May Day highlights the relationship between worker safety and power. Workplace conditions are shaped by policy choices, enforcement priorities, and the distribution of control within workplaces. Current policy directions influence how hazards are identified, protections are applied, and accountability is enforced. Worker deaths and injuries continue to follow patterns that have been documented over time. The systems designed to address those patterns are being shaped in ways that affect how widely harm continues.
By Wendy Cervantes
For over a decade, ICE’s parental interest directive has served as an important tool to ensure that parents impacted by ICE enforcement actions are able to make decisions about their children’s care. First implemented following significant advocacy from racial justice, children, and immigrant rights groups in 2013, the policy is intended to ensure that ICE’s enforcement actions do not unnecessarily infringe upon the legal parental or guardianship rights of individuals facing detention and deportation. In July 2025, Trump’s ICE issued a new “detained parent directive,” replacing the policy with similar but ultimately weaker protections for families.
In response to Trump’s weakening of parental protections, Congress must act to protect children and mitigate the harms of interior enforcement. The HELP Separated Children Act would help do that.
By Parker Gilkesson Davis
The Farm Bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation Congress considers in terms of agriculture and food. It determines funding for programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps millions of families afford groceries each month.
If you’re less familiar with what the Farm Bill does and why it matters, we break it down in this 2023 Farm Bill video.
The Farm Bill was originally set to be reauthorized in 2023, but Congress was unable to reach agreement and instead extended the existing bill. Now, after months of delay and ongoing negotiations, Congress is preparing to make a decision that will directly impact whether millions of families can afford to eat.
As written, the current Farm Bill proposal would codify harmful SNAP cuts, enacted through H.R. 1, that have already made it more difficult for families across the country to buy food. Since those changes took effect last September, over 2.5 million people have lost SNAP benefits; in states like Arizona, participation has dropped by 47 percent.
This proposal bakes in the harm caused by H.R. 1. As written, it would further codify those SNAP changes, including expanded work requirements that are already putting veterans, foster youth aging out of care, older adults, and others at risk of losing their benefits entirely. Critically, the bill also fails to address or even slow the cost shift to states, which will place significant financial and administrative strain on state agencies and further destabilize access to benefits. At a minimum, Congress should use the Farm Bill to halt or delay these cost shifts and begin reversing the damage that’s already been done.
SNAP is the nation’s most effective anti-hunger program, reducing poverty, improving physical and mental health outcomes, and supporting local economies. At a time when families are already struggling with high food costs, Congress should be strengthening this program, not deepening cuts and widening inequities in food access.
Members of Congress have a choice. They can vote “yes” and continue down a path that takes food away from families. Or they can vote “no” and take meaningful steps to reverse the harmful changes from H.R. 1 and, at a minimum, slow or halt cost shifts that will only destabilize families further. Congress must vote no on this Farm Bill and proactively move forward with solutions that actually put food back on the table.
People are not less hungry, and there is not less of a need for assistance. Rather, people are being pushed out of the program. This is what it looks like when policy fails to meet people’s needs. The Farm Bill doesn’t have to be simply a piece of legislation. It can be a commitment to ensuring food is restored to tables.
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.
By Christian Collins, Teon Hayes, Kaelin Rapport
2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the United States, and this February brings the 10oth anniversary of Black History Month. The Association for the Study of African American Life and History, which founded Black History Month, calls us to celebrate Black history across the African Diaspora and how that history is tied to Black people’s current material conditions. Those conditions have become more precarious as the Trump Administration enacts its agenda to”Make American Great Again.”
Considering these two anniversaries, we should ask ourselves what great means, and great for whom? In the first year of Trump’s second term, his administration has enacted explicitly discriminatory policies reversing the progress made by civil rights leaders and activists in the struggle for equity. These actions disproportionately harm Black communities and destroy measures implemented to right historical wrongs.
Acknowledging the past through reparations is a necessary step toward building a future where the white supremacy undergirding the MAGA movement is stamped out. While there has been abundant research on racial inequality, more direct examination on how best to address harm and evaluate the impact of existing reparative policies and programs is needed. We can learn from those that have gotten off the ground so that all communities, especially ones still dealing with the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow, can thrive.
By Jesse Fairbanks
Everyone deserves a safe, affordable home. Our federal government protects people from housing instability through its rental assistance programs that help more than 10 million people, including 3.2 million children, keep a roof over their heads.
The Trump Administration is drafting a rule that, reportedly, would allow more providers of rental assistance and other HUD-assisted housing to add work requirements and/or time limits to their programs. Under the draft rule, housing providers could:
Implementing strict time limits or work requirements in rental assistance programs will put as many as 3 million people at risk of losing their homes without increasing employment opportunities or economic mobility. People who are able to work but lack reliable shelter struggle to find and maintain a job, care for loved ones, and develop their skills. Federal, state, and local policymakers must reject harmful policies like work requirements and time limits, which would ultimately deprive low income and working families of critically necessary housing stability.
You can learn more about what this proposal could mean for HUD-assisted housing programs and the communities who need them to thrive in this fact sheet written with national partners like the National Housing Law Project, Justice in Aging, the National Low Income Housing Coalition, and Southern Poverty Law Center.