Heinrich, Luján Blast Trump Admin’s Attacks on Head Start, Demand RFK Jr. Immediately Unfreeze Head Start Funding & Reverse Firings of Early Childhood Education Workers

In a letter to RFK Jr., Heinrich & Luján demand answers on Trump Admin’s actions to undermine Head Start as Trump reportedly plans to eliminate the program

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), one of only two Head Start graduates to serve in the Senate, sent a letter to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to demand the Trump Administration stop its attacks on Head Start programs. In their letter, Heinrich and Luján reminded Secretary Kennedy of his legal obligation to administer Head Start, and demanded that HHS immediately unfreeze Head Start funding, reverse the mass firing of Head Start workers, and stop  gutting offices that ensure high-quality early childhood education services are available for thousands of children and families in New Mexico and nationwide.

In New Mexico, Head Start and early Head Start programs serve 8,800 children living below the poverty line, including 271 children experiencing homelessness, and 139 children in foster care in 2022. 

“We write to express our strong opposition to the actions you have taken to directly attack and undermine the federal Head Start program. Since day one, this Administration has taken unacceptable actions to withhold and delay funding, fire Head Start staff, and gut high-quality services for children. Already this year, this Administration has withheld almost $1 billion in federal grant funding from Head Start programs, a 37 percent decrease compared to the amount of funding awarded during the same period last year,” the senators wrote in a letter to Secretary Kennedy. “It is abundantly clear that these actions are part of a broader effort to ultimately eliminate the program altogether, as the Administration reportedly plans to do in its fiscal year 2026 budget proposal.”

The senators detailed how the program plays an instrumental role in supporting kids and families across the country, writing: “Head Start provides early childhood education and comprehensive health and social services to nearly 800,000 young children every year in communities across this country, and employs about 250,000 dedicated staff. Head Start is a critical source of child care for working families, particularly in rural and Tribal communities, where Head Start programs are often the only option for high-quality child care services. Head Start programs ensure children receive appropriate health and dental care, nutrition support, and referrals to other critical services for parents, such as job training, adult education, nutrition services, and housing support.”

“You even acknowledged the value of Head Start following a recent visit to a Virginia Head Start center,” the senators wrote, contrasting that statement of support with the Trump administration’s actions. “However, as a result of your actions to withhold and delay funding and undermine the administration of this vital program, Head Start centers are in serious jeopardy and have already had their day to day operations impacted. Programs are increasingly worried that they will not be able to make payroll, pay rent, and remain open to serve the hundreds of thousands of children and families who depend on their services in communities across the nation.”

“Since the very start of this Administration, Head Start programs have been under attack,” the senators wrote, detailing office closures and funds that were frozen for Head Start grants across the country. “At one point, the National Head Start Association reported 37 programs serving nearly 15,000 children across the country could not access their federal funding. Head Start programs operate with thin margins and on short-term budgets from HHS, and without any communication from the Administration about the status of funding, programs were forced to temporarily close or to lay off staff.”

The senators underscored how the gutting of Head Start offices and the firing of staff who keep the federal program running puts the entire program in jeopardy, “On April 1st, you abruptly closed five of the ten regional offices that help local grantees administer Head Start programs in 22 states. This left hundreds of programs without dedicated points of contact to address mission critical issues like approving grant renewals and modifications, investigating child health and safety incidents, and providing training and technical assistance to ensure high-quality services for children. While some grantees were assigned a new program specialist, we understand many have not been receiving responses to their inquiries. This is on top of the estimated 97 Office of Head Start central office staff that were terminated due to their probationary status and the recent reduction in force. You promised ‘radical transparency’ as Secretary, yet it is unclear how these actions will improve Head Start programs, and you and your staff refuse to respond to basic inquiries and requests for information.”

Importantly, the senators noted that if Head Start funding is kept frozen by the Trump Administration, many more programs could be forced to close.

“Head Start grantees are still waiting on payments and grant renewals from the Office of Head Start, including programs whose grants end on April 30th, 2025. These notices should have gone out by now, yet we are concerned to hear programs report they have received little to no correspondence regarding their grant renewals,” the senators continued, detailing how local Head Start programs are receiving no notice for the path forward for grant funding. “Additionally, because we started fiscal year 2025 under a short-term continuing resolution, as is usual, some grantees have only received partial funding for the first few months of the year. But with a full year funding bill in place, these grantees should have received full funding by now, yet some are reporting that they have not received the full amount of their grants and will run out of funds this month or next. On Wednesday, April 16th, the delays in Head Start funding led to the closure of Head Start centers serving more than 400 children in Sunnyside, Washington.”

“The Administration has a legal and moral obligation to disburse Head Start funds to programs and to uphold the program’s promise to provide high-quality early education services to low income children and families across this country,” the senators stated. “There is no justifiable reason for the delay in funding we have seen over the last two months, and you have refused to offer any kind of explanation.”

The senators concluded by warning that eliminating Head Start would be devastating, demanding answers on the Trump Administration’s actions, and demanding the reversal of these actions: “[W]e urge you to immediately reinstate fired staff across all Offices of Head Start, and cease all actions to delay the awarding and disbursement of funding to Head Start programs across this country.”

Community leaders in New Mexico are weighing in on the grave consequences of the Trump Administration’s continuous assault on Head Start for children’s futures:

“As a Head Start Leader for over 40 years, I have witnessed firsthand the transformative impact Head Start has on children, families, and communities. Eliminating Head Start would be nothing less than a national tragedy. It would be a direct attack on the country’s most vulnerable children and families – those who have the least and need the most.” said Patricia Grovey Evans, President of New Mexico Head Start Association.

“Defunding the Head Start program would be a grave injustice to young Zuni children, who depend on this vital resource to embark on their educational journey steeped in cultural identity and moral values. Early childhood education is not merely about teaching; it lays the foundation for self-awareness and community connection that will guide them throughout their lives. Cutting this crucial funding threatens to strip away their opportunity to nurture the skills and cultural heritage essential for their growth and future success,” said Anthony Sanchez, Head Councilman for Zuni Tribe.

“Jemez Pueblo’s Walatowa Head Start Language Immersion Program offers a unique and valuable community-based education delivered solely in our Towa language. Education of our youngest community members is important and to have that education provided in our native language is of the utmost importance. As Native people, it was vital that our Head Start program incorporated the Pueblo’s vibrant traditional calendar through art, music and dance while also incorporating other subjects like math and science. Walatowa Head Start Language Immersion Program serves as a model for other tribal Head Start programs who wish to teach the children in their native language. Our community worked for over a decade to make this education culturally responsive and if funding for Head Start were to disappear, so would our community’s work. We cannot allow this to happen,” said Carnell Chosa, First Lieutenant Governor of Jemez Pueblo.

“As someone working on the front lines of early childhood education in New Mexico, I am deeply alarmed by the proposed cuts to Head Start in President Trump’s leaked budget. At the Now Mexico Association for the Education of Young Children (NMAEYC), we see firsthand how essential this program is especially for families inour rural and underserved communities. Head Start has been a cornerstone for opportunity and stability for low-income families for 60 years. Eliminating this program would jeopardize early learning, health, and nutrition services for more than 150,000 children across the country, including thousands here in New Mexico. Head Start is not just a program- it’s a lifeline. Gutting this critical funding, would harm our most vulnerable children, undermine family stability, and set our state back for generations. Continued investment in Head Start is not optional – it’s essential to ensuring that every New Mexico child, regardless of zip code, has a fair shot at success,” said Alicia B. Borrego, MBA, Executive Director of New Mexico Association for the Education of Young Children.

“Children are our most precious resource. Cutting funding for Head Start and Early Head Start, which serve nearly 8,800 of New Mexico’s most vulnerable children, jeopardizes our children’s future, our community’s wellbeing, and our economy. These programs provide vital education and support families and their health, improving immunization rates, healthcare access, and social-emotional, language, and cognitive development. While New Mexico has made bold investments in early childhood, strong federal support is essential for every child to succeed in school and to flourish in life,” said Gabrielle Uballez, Executive Director of New Mexico Voices for Children.

“Head Start has been a massively important force in changing the game for young children. The science tells us that 85% of brain development happens before age 5, so this is a common sense investment, and one that has contributed to decades of American prosperity,” said Kate Noble, President and CEO of Growing Up New Mexico.

“Thanks to my experience working as a Head Start teacher in Santa Fe, I’ve seen firsthand how the Head Start Program change lives – giving our youngest leaners the solid foundation they need to succeed in school and beyond. Cutting this program would mean turning our backs on the children who need us most. This program isn’t just early education; it’s lifeblood for families who are doing their best with so little. Taking it away would break something sacred in our community.” said Deyanira Contreras, Director of Kids Campus at SFCC.

Alongside Heinrich and Luján, the letter is signed by U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Mazie K. Hirono (D-Hawaii), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Tim Kaine (D-Minn.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Minn.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Angus King (I-Maine), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), and Mark Warner (D-Va.).

The full text of the letter is here and below:

Dear Secretary Kennedy:

We write to express our strong opposition to the actions you have taken to directly attack and undermine the federal Head Start program. Since day one, this Administration has taken unacceptable actions to withhold and delay funding, fire Head Start staff, and gut high-quality services for children. Already this year, this Administration has withheld almost $1 billion in federal grant funding from Head Start programs, a 37 percent decrease compared to the amount of funding awarded during the same period last year. It is abundantly clear that these actions are part of a broader effort to ultimately eliminate the program altogether, as the Administration reportedly plans to do in its fiscal year 2026 budget proposal.

Head Start provides early childhood education and comprehensive health and social services to nearly 800,000 young children every year in communities across this country, and employs about 250,000 dedicated staff. Head Start is a critical source of child care for working families, particularly in rural and Tribal communities, where Head Start programs are often the only option for high-quality child care services. HeadStart programs ensure children receive appropriate health and dental care, nutrition support, and referrals to other critical services for parents, such as job training, adult education, nutrition services, and housing support.

You even acknowledged the value of Head Start following a recent visit to a Virginia Head Start center, where you said, “I had a very inspiring tour. I saw a devoted staff and a lot of happy children. They are getting the kind of education and socialization they need, and they are also getting a couple of meals a day.”

However, as a result of your actions to withhold and delay funding and undermine the administration of this vital program, Head Start centers are in serious jeopardy and have already had their day to day operations impacted. Programs are increasingly worried that they will not be able to make payroll, pay rent, and remain open to serve the hundreds of thousands of children and families who depend on their services in communities across the nation.

Since the very start of this Administration, Head Start programs have been under attack. On January 27th, 2025, the Office of Management and Budget issued a memo (M-25-13) that suddenly froze the disbursement of grant funding for federal programs and services government-wide, including Head Start. Despite the Administration’s clarification that Head Start programs would not be the target of the funding freeze, many Head Startprograms across the country were unable to draw down their grant funds through the Payment Management System (PMS) for weeks. At one point, the National Head StartAssociation reported 37 programs serving nearly 15,000 children across the country could not access their federal funding. Head Start programs operate with thin margins and on short-term budgets from HHS, and without any communication from the Administration about the status of funding, programs were forced to temporarily close or to lay off staff. In Wisconsin, the National Centers for Learning Excellence, which serves more than 200 children and their families, shut down for a week and laid off staff due to the funding freeze.

On April 1st, you abruptly closed five of the ten regional offices that help local grantees administer Head Start programs in 22 states. This left hundreds of programs without dedicated points of contact to address mission critical issues like approving grant renewals and modifications, investigating child health and safety incidents, and providing training and technical assistance to ensure high-quality services for children. While some grantees were assigned a new program specialist, we understand many have not been receiving responses to their inquiries. This is on top of the estimated 97 Office of Head Start central office staff that were terminated due to their probationary status and the recent reduction in force. You promised “radical transparency” as Secretary, yet it is unclear how these actions will improve Head Start programs, and you and your staff refuse to respond to basic inquiries and requests for information.

On March 14th, 2025, the Office of Head Start (OHS) notified all Head Start programs that “the use of federal funding for any training and technical assistance or other program expenditures that promote or take part in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives” will not be approved and that any questions should be directed to regional offices. Programs have not received any guidance for what would be considered “DEI” but this policy is potentially in direct conflict with statutory and regulatory program requirements, such as providing culturally and linguistically appropriate instructional services for English learners. Many programs cannot direct questions to regional staff, as half of regional offices were abruptly closed, and as unprecedented actions are being taken to delay and withhold funding, Head Start programs have been intentionally left with little to no guidance.

Head Start programs are now arbitrarily required to provide justifications for each draw down of funds that is necessary to operate their programs, despite already receiving a federal grant award for these purposes. As of April 14th, Head Startprograms have reportedly received correspondence from an email address “defendthespend@hhs.gov” requiring programs to submit a “specific description of why the funds are necessary and why they are aligned to the award” before programs can have funding disbursed. It has been reported that political appointees must sign off on every draw down of funds. This creates an illusion of improving oversight but only serves to add unnecessary red tape by requiring the manual sign off on hundreds of thousands of individual actions annually across the Department based on two to three sentence justifications. Already some grantees have reported delays in receiving funds, and have reported that furloughs or closures are imminent if funds are not released. For an administration that purports to value local autonomy and efficiency in federally funded programs, your actions have achieved the exact opposite.

Finally, Head Start grantees are still waiting on payments and grant renewals from the Office of Head Start, including programs whose grants end on April 30th, 2025. These notices should have gone out by now, yet we are concerned to hear programs report they have received little to no correspondence regarding their grant renewals. Additionally, because we started fiscal year 2025 under a short-term continuing resolution, as is usual, some grantees have only received partial funding for the first few months of the year. But with a full year funding bill in place, these grantees should have received full funding by now, yet some are reporting that they have not received the full amount of their grants and will run out of funds this month or next. On Wednesday, April 16th, the delays in Head Start funding led to the closure of Head Start centers serving more than 400 children in Sunnyside, Washington.

The Administration has a legal and moral obligation to disburse Head Start funds to programs and to uphold the program’s promise to provide high-quality early education services to low income children and families across this country. The fiscal year 2025 appropriations act provided $12.3 billion for Head Start, the same as the fiscal year 2024 level. The Head Start Act includes an explicit formula for how appropriated funds should be allocated. There is no justifiable reason for the delay in funding we have seen over the last two months, and you have refused to offer any kind of explanation. However, this week leaked fiscal year 2026 budget documents indicated the Office of Management and Budget was directing the Department, consistent with the Administration’s proposal to eliminate Head Start in fiscal year 2026, to “ensure to the extent allowable FY2025 funds are available to close out the program.” If this explains any of the delay in awarding fiscal year 2025 funding, we want to be clear, no funds were provided in fiscal year 2025 to “close out the program,” and it would be wholly unacceptable and likely illegal if the Department tries to carry out this directive.

Finally, the leaked budget documents provided a justification, albeit brief, for eliminating Head Start in fiscal year 2026 that makes this Administration’s priorities clear and puts the Department’s actions over the last several months in context. The Administration argues that eliminating Head Start, “is consistent with the Administration’s goals of returning education to the States and increasing parental choice.” It is shocking to see an argument that eliminating a program that provides comprehensive early childhood care and education to 800,000 children and their families would increase parental choice. It is particularly concerning to see that argument in the context of the significant delay in awarding fiscal year 2025 appropriated funds and what that indicates about the intent behind the Department’s actions. We believe it is obvious that eliminating Head Start would be detrimental to hundreds of thousands of children and families. Similarly, we believe it is obvious that delaying funding like we have seen over the last two months, forcing Head Startprograms to close, and leaving families to scramble to find quality, affordable alternatives puts the education and well-being of some of the most vulnerable young children in America at risk. In our view, that is unacceptable.

Therefore, we urge you to immediately reinstate fired staff across all Offices of HeadStart, and cease all actions to delay the awarding and disbursement of funding to HeadStart programs across this country.

Please provide us with a written response to the questions below no later than 10 days from receipt:

1. Will you reinstate the staff who administer Head Start programs and reopen the closed regional offices responsible for overseeing Head Start programs in 22 states?

a) When is HHS going to share information on the reorganization plan for the consolidation of the regional offices?

b) Please provide the contact information for each program specialist designated to the 22 states who lost their regional office.

c) Who is responsible for ensuring there are no delays or lapses in funding, nor any disruptions to Head Start program operations now that these states do not have a regional office?

2. How many employees at the Offices of Head Start have been terminated, including the five regional offices and the central office?

a) Which officials at HHS were involved in the staffing reduction decisions for OHS and what planning, if any, was undertaken prior to these reductions? Please describe the events that unfolded and name each office that was involved in the decision. Further, please name the official(s) who approved the staffing reductions.

3. Can you confirm that the Administration will distribute all Head Start funds appropriated by Congress to Head Start programs in FY 25, as required by the HeadStart Act?

4. Please provide a list of all grantees with 5-year Head Start grant renewals that startbetween now and the end of the fiscal year: May 1st, June 1st, July 1st, August 1st, and September 1st.

a) Will any funding be delayed for grantees that are due to receive their annual funding on May 1st or beyond?

5. Why are funding awards delayed for grantees that received partial awards during the first continuing resolution for FY25?

a) When can HHS guarantee that all funds will be awarded for partially funded Head Start programs?

6. What is the “Tier 2” department for review that is delaying drawn down for HeadStart programs in the Payment Management System?

a) When should programs expect to receive their funds?

b) Please provide all communication that went to Head Start grantees on the new review process.

7. What guidance and clarifications have been provided to Head Start grantees on DEI expenditures?

a) How is HHS evaluating Head Start programs’ expenditures and grant awards for DEI?

b) What justifications are being used to prohibit DEI?

###