On July 21, 2025 twenty states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, challenging the administration’s decision earlier this month to restrict publicly funded programs — including those related to education — based on immigration status.
The lawsuit, led by New York, argues that the restrictions to previously inclusive programs like Head Start will hurt low-income families and lead to the ”collapse of some of the nation’s most vital public programs.”
Seeking to block the changes in the short and long term, the states allege the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) and three other federal agencies did not follow the required rulemaking process in issuing new immigration verification requirements. The lawsuit alleges that the policy changes will impact not only undocumented immigrants, but also people holding legal status, such as temporary workers, exchange visitors and those with student visas. The suit was filed in federal district court in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island.
The lawsuit expands an existing lawsuit over the Trump administration’s actions vis-a-vis Head Start to include “this new attack on Head Start.” Previously, in April the ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging the administration’s moves to gut Head Start by shuttering half of the regional Office of Head Start offices and laying off much of the federal offices’ staff. Plaintiffs in that lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington state, include parent groups and the Head Start associations of Washington, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
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