On July 25, 2025 the Trump administration signed on to a court-approved agreement temporarily pausing enforcement of recent policy changes that restrict some education-related federal programs (i.e., Head Start, dual enrollment, adult education, and CTE) based on students’ immigration or citizenship status. The agreement, filed in U.S. District Court for Rhode Island, was reached between the parties in a recent lawsuit by 20 states and the District of Columbia against multiple federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Under the agreement, Head Start programs in those states won’t be required to verify the immigration or citizenship status of the children they enroll until at least September 3, 2025. HHS, which administers Head Start, previously said the new policy requiring immigration status verification would take effect immediately.
In addition, the USDE was set to enforce its new restrictions for some immigrants in programs like dual enrollment, adult education and career and technical training programs by August 9. 2025. The Friday agreement would also delay that for about a month.
As part of the agreement, states that sued cannot be held liable for admitting students without proper immigration status into the programs before Sept. 4. That means programs will not be retroactively penalized for enrolling all students regardless of their immigration status, as has been the norm for Head Start for decades.
The Rhode Island agreement does not affect an existing lawsuit over the Trump administration’s actions vis-a-vis Head Start to include a “new attack on Head Start.” That April 2025 ACLU-led lawsuit challenged 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, included parent groups and the Head Start associations of Washington, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
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