Federal judge voids Trump rule barring some immigrants from Head Start, clinics

A federal judge in Rhode Island has struck down a Trump administration directive that would have barred some immigrants from a range of federally funded social services, including Head Start preschools, community health clinics and adult education programs.

U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy, appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump in 2019, had already paused the rule last year before it could take effect. On Monday, she converted that temporary hold into a permanent injunction.

The directive, issued in July 2025, sought to reclassify large portions of federally funded social services under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, a Clinton-era law. That reclassification would have placed the programs out of reach for people designated as "nonqualified aliens" — a category covering adults and children present in the country illegally, as well as some holders of work visas and recipients of Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

Those groups are already excluded from full Medicaid benefits and from federally funded food and cash assistance.

Democratic attorneys general from 20 states and the District of Columbia challenged the directive in court. In her ruling, McElroy described the directive as "unlawful" and said the administration had not used the proper channels to rewrite the rules, calling its actions "procedurally invalid."

The departments of Labor, Education, Justice and Health and Human Services were named as defendants. Requests for comment from those agencies were not immediately returned. The Administration for Children and Families, the HHS division that oversees Head Start, said it does not discuss pending litigation.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of the officials who sued, welcomed the decision. "From cancer screenings to food banks to early childhood education, the federal government's attempts to decimate the social safety net would have been catastrophic for working families," she said.

Supporters of Head Start had warned that the policy would deprive immigrant communities of health services and educational opportunities. The states' lawsuit argued that the administrative burden of carrying out the rule would have forced many under-resourced Head Start programs to close.