On Friday, undocumented immigrants, banned from Head Start and career and technical education programs and adult education earlier this month, were granted a reprieve through Sept. 3 in the 20 states — and the District of Columbia — where attorneys general fought the Trump administration’s recent directive to kick them out, according to . The U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Education, and the U.S. Department of Labor all agreed to the delay.

From cradle to career, President Donald Trump has launched a comprehensive campaign to close off education to undocumented immigrants, undercutting, advocates say, the very reason many came to the United States: for a chance at a better life. 

Preschoolers without legal status are now banned from Head Start and older students and adults without papers are blocked from career, technical and adult education. Some states are rescinding in-state college tuition for those here illegally and K-12 schools are being targeted by the president’s sweeping immigration enforcement crackdown

The affecting Head Start enrollment was released July 10. The federally funded early education program was created in 1965 to help underprivileged children succeed in school.

On the same day, the U.S. Department of Education shut the door on older undocumented students and adults hoping to gain job skills, earn dual enrollment credits or learn to read. Education Secretary Linda McMahon : “Under President Trump’s leadership, hardworking American taxpayers will no longer foot the bill for illegal aliens to participate in our career, technical, or adult education programs or activities.”

The nation’s K-12 public schools, filling the vast middle between early education and college and careers, have been leveraged in the administration’s aggressive, deportation effort with federal agents arresting and detaining students and . 

These and other enforcement tactics have terrified newcomer families to the point that some students are , prompting educators to suggest a solution that was once unthinkable: a return to remote learning.

“I know districts are contending with, you know, ‘Do we move to the hybrid approach that we learned how to do back in the pandemic in the fall so that students are not subject to ICE raids by just walking in the classroom door?” Amy Loyd, head of CTE and adult education under former education secretary Miguel Cardona, told ����Ӱ��.

has already started offering this option, a nod to the numerous barriers undocumented young people already face in pursuing higher education. Cost is among the most pressing; these students . 

The financial hurdle was alleviated when at least two dozen states, often with bipartisan support, extended in-state college tuition to local high school graduates who lack legal status. These policies, some in place for decades, are now under attack by the Trump administration. 

The president in the spring saying the policies needed to stop because they offered more affordable in-state tuition rates “to aliens but not to out-of-State American citizens.” In June, the justice department sued to end the practice, setting students adrift. Within hours, the voluntarily agreed to abolish its program, the oldest in the country. 

was first to act, moving to eliminate in-state tuition for undocumented students in February. 

Augustus Mays, the vice president of EdTrust, an equity-focused advocacy group, called out the bigger picture in reacting to the CTE and adult education restrictions earlier this month. 

“Let’s be clear: this move is part of a broader, deeply disturbing trend,” he said in a statement. “This is not about protecting taxpayers. It’s about punishing students. This administration is choosing to weaponize policy against hope itself.”

On July 23, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights , including the University of Miami and the University of Michigan, for offering scholarships to undocumented students protected by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which gives them the right to live and work in this country. The inquiries will examine whether granting scholarships to DACA recipients discriminates against American-born college-goers.

“As we mark President Trump’s historic six months back in the White House, we are expanding our enforcement efforts to protect American students and lawful residents from invidious national origin discrimination of the kind alleged here,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement.

The youngest — and the oldest — learners 

Sarah Orth is chief executive officer at the Blind Children’s Center, which was founded in Los Angeles in 1938. Its programs now include Head Start, which serves 85 early learners from birth to 5 years old.

“This move against Head Start is so egregious because infants and toddlers are the most vulnerable,” she said, adding she’s unsure how her program will identify and remove undocumented students. “Are the children who are already enrolled going to be grandfathered in or am I kicking the kids out next week? I have no idea. I have people on my staff who are crying because they are going to have to deliver this news.”

Orth said some families could never find the breadth of services their kids need in their home countries. She recalled one 4-year-old girl brought into the program by her parents, who were young and Spanish-speaking. Their daughter was visually impaired, had sensory issues and had not been exposed much to the outside world. 

“When they first enrolled her, dad would carry her from the car to the classroom and would never put her down,” Orth said. “If you tried to do that, she would lift her feet up because she didn’t know what was happening.”

Within six to eight months of enrolling in Head Start, the child was walking on her own — both indoors and outside — and playing with friends. As she grew in confidence, she was no longer “clinging to dad with the fear she had when she first came to us.”

Her parents also learned how important it was for her to have social-emotional connections, Orth said. 

An estimated 115,000 Head Start children and families could be impacted by the move to bar the undocumented. Together, they comprise roughly 16% of the program’s total 2024-25 enrollment, according to by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the program. The federal government of Head Start’s cost, devoting to the program in 2023.

“For 60 years, this program has never required that kind of [citizenship status] validation or verification,” said Luis Bautista, executive director of the Los Angeles County Office of Education Head Start and Early Learning Division, which serves some 7,000 children and families. “This is just adding to the fear and confusion families are experiencing amidst all of the other actions out there — including immigration.”

He called Trump’s move “extremely unfortunate,” adding that he doesn’t agree with the president’s characterization of kids born on foreign soil. 

“I don’t consider a child — especially a 3-year-old — to be illegal in any way,” Bautista said, adding money devoted to young minds is well spent. “Ninety percent of brain development happens before age 5. That is where the investment should be.”

It’s unclear how many older students will be affected by Trump’s citizenship restrictions. participated in CTE in the 2020-21 school year, the most recent year for which federal data is available, according to the Association for Career & Technical Education. 

Congress each year sends some for competitive grants to support CTE efforts across the country. These programs, through their funding, are required to support nine “special populations,” including single parents, those with disabilities and English learners. 

Loyd, who is now CEO of the advocacy organization , said she’s concerned about Trump’s focus on higher education, including CTE programs, which she said help students from all walks of life.

“Basically, we are relegating high school students to entry-level, dead-end jobs,” she said. “It’s just mean-spirited and certainly consistent with the administration’s commitment to undermine the vital presence of immigrants in our nation. It’s so dehumanizing.”

The $715 million the federal government spends on adult education , adults and out-of-school teens 16 and older. The funding, among the $7 billion temporarily frozen by Trump this summer, covers a range of programs, including high school diploma equivalency, adult literacy and vocational job training for people with disabilities. 

The programs are run by . Many . 

An adult education teacher in Indiana told ����Ӱ�� that the 300-plus immigrants in her program — many from Haiti, Guinea and Senegal — enroll to learn English and earn a high school diploma equivalency. Some of the younger students, she said, use the program to prepare for college while the older participants hope it will help them land better-paying jobs. 

The teacher, who asked not to be identified because she feared losing funding for her program, described her students as “the most respectful, grateful people I have ever met in my life.” 

She said they respond with copious appreciation even for a gift as small as a pencil.

“I’ll say, ‘Just take it,’ and they will use it until it’s down to the nub,” she said. “They are just so eager to learn.”

Will Plyler be next?

The administration is changing the narrative around programs like Head Start and CTE, moving them away from their educational roots and the view that they were beneficial to the economy and casting them instead as federal public benefits. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for such programs, including food assistance and non-emergency Medicaid.

Wil Del Pilar, senior vice president at EdTrust, asserted that this is part of a wider strategy by the president to scapegoat some of the country’s most vulnerable people.

“This is not a new trope,” he said, adding that German, Irish and other immigrant groups were similarly castigated upon their arrival to America, fueled by the notion that newcomers “are taking something that belongs to you, that they are getting a benefit you don’t receive.”

And while many of Trump’s initiatives are facing legal challenges — 21 Democratic attorneys general earlier this month over the and directives — the president has prevailed in his efforts on immigration. 

With each new announcement, immigrant advocates worry Trump could be inching closer to dismantling or undermining Plyler v. Doe, the landmark 1982 Supreme Court ruling that a child cannot be denied a public education based on immigration status. Some immigrant advocates fear his administration might try to argue that a free, public education is also a public benefit program — and so off-limits to undocumented K-12 students.

The U.S. is home to roughly undocumented residents. In 2021, the American Community Survey ages 5 to 17 who had been in the United States for three years or less, and another 1.5 million immigrant children living here four years or more, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and architect of the president’s immigration crackdown, searched for ways to undercut Plyler. In June, one of the authors of the conservative playbook, who has proposed challenging or overturning the ruling, became the Education Department’s newest . Both Texas and have recently tried to weaken K-12 protections for undocumented students.

Pamela Broussard, a Texas-based educator and advocate for English learners, said overturning Plyler “would betray the very principles upon which public education was founded.”

She maintained that education is a right — not a privilege — and that all students deserve to be supported in their learning.

“When any group of children is denied access to education, we create an underclass more likely to face poverty, unemployment and social marginalization,” she told ����Ӱ��. “At its core, Plyler v. Doe affirmed that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment applies to all people, not just citizens.”

Undocumented students in Texas are no longer eligible for in-state tuition after Texas agreed Wednesday with the federal government’s demand to stop the practice.

The abrupt end to Texas’ 24-year-old law came hours after the U.S. Department of Justice announced it was suing Texas over its policy of letting undocumented students qualify for lower tuition rates at public universities. Texas quickly asked the court to side with the feds and find that the law was unconstitutional and should be blocked, which did.

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claimed credit for the outcome, saying in a statement Wednesday evening that “ending this discriminatory and un-American provision is a major victory for Texas,” echoing the argument made by Trump administration officials.

“Under federal law, schools cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement Wednesday. “The Justice Department will relentlessly fight to vindicate federal law and ensure that U.S. citizens are not treated like second-class citizens anywhere in the country.”

The Justice Department filed its lawsuit in the Wichita Falls division of the Northern District of Texas, where . ��※��DzԲԴǰ�, appointed by President George W. Bush, has long been a favored judge for the Texas attorney general’s office and conservative litigants.

Texas began granting in-state tuition to undocumented students in 2001, becoming the first state to extend eligibility. A bill to end this practice advanced out of a Texas Senate committee for the first time in a decade this year but stalled before reaching the floor.

The measure, , would have repealed the law, and also required students to cover the difference between in- and out-of-state tuition should their school determine they had been misclassified. It would have allowed universities to withhold their diploma if they don’t pay the difference within 30 days of being notified and if the diploma had not already been granted.

Republican Sen. of Galveston authored the legislation, which would have prohibited universities from using any money to provide undocumented students with scholarships, grants or financial aid. It would have also required universities to report students whom they believe had misrepresented their immigration status to the attorney general’s office and tied their funding to compliance with the law.

Responding to the filing Wednesday, Middleton on social media that he welcomed the lawsuit and hoped the state would settle it with an agreement scrapping eligibility for undocumented migrants.

Middleton is in next year’s GOP primary, as incumbent vacates the seat to run for the U.S. Senate.

The House contemplated similar legislation to Middleton’s bill. Under by state Rep. , R-Angleton, undocumented students 18 or older would have been required to provide proof that they had applied to become a permanent U.S. resident to be eligible for in-state tuition. That measure also died in committee.

To qualify for in-state tuition under the law that was struck down Wednesday, undocumented students must have lived in the state for three years before graduating from high school and for a year before enrolling in college. They must also sign an affidavit stating they will apply for legal resident status as soon as they can.

Texas Higher Education Commissioner Wynn Rosser told lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee earlier this year that about 19,000 undocumented students have signed that affidavit.

Sen. , R-Georgetown, pressed Rosser to provide more information about students who had signed affidavits, including how many receive financial aid from the state. Rosser said he was unsure.

“We have a constitutional duty regarding K-12, but higher education does not have that duty regarding funding of non-citizens,” Schwertner said. “From a policy perspective, if we’re for big, strong, secure borders and walls, then we should also be looking on the back end of what we incentivize, or not incentivize, individuals that are coming across our borders illegally against federal law and state law.”

Before Wednesday’s ruling, Texas was one of 24 states, including the District of Columbia, to offer in-state tuition to undocumented students, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal.

This issue has come before the courts before. In 2022, a district court ruled that federal law prevented the University of North Texas from offering undocumented immigrants an educational benefit that was not available to all U.S. citizens. The threw out that case on procedural grounds, but noted there likely were “valid preemption challenges to Texas’ scheme.” Trump administration lawyers repeatedly cited that finding throughout Wednesday’s filing.

“States like Texas have been in clear violation of federal law on this issue,” said Robert Henneke, executive director and general counsel at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the conservative think tank that brought the 2022 lawsuit. “If anything, it’s surprising that this wasn’t brought earlier.

Don Graham, a co-founder of , the largest scholarship program for undocumented students, said these young people already face significant hurdles to get to college. They cannot access federal grants and loans, so legal action to rescind in-state tuition could prevent them from completing or enrolling in college altogether, he noted.

“It’ll mean that some of the brightest young students in the country, some of the most motivated, will be denied an opportunity for higher education,” Graham said. “And it’ll hurt the workforce, it’ll hurt the economy.”

Hundreds of Texas students who have been awarded a scholarship went into nursing and education, professions that are struggling with shortages. Recent from the American Immigration Council suggests rescinding in-state tuition for undocumented students in the state could cost Texas more than $460 million a year from lost wages and spending power.

The loss of thousands of students will also have an immediate financial impact on universities, according to available data. About 20,000 students using the law to enroll at Texas universities paid over $81 million in tuition and fees in 2021, according to a from progressive nonprofit Every Texan. In the wake of the court’s ruling, advocates said stifling those enrollments would create cascading effects.

“This policy has been instrumental in providing access to higher education for all Texas students, regardless of immigration status, and dismantling it would not only harm these students but also undermine the economic and social fabric of our state,” said Judith Cruz, assistant director for the Houston region for EdTrust in Texas.

At least one organization, , which goes by its Spanish acronym FIEL, released a statement saying it would challenge the court’s judgment. “Without in-state tuition, many students who have grown up in Texas, simply will not be able to afford three or four times the tuition other Texas students pay,” FIEL Executive Director Cesar Espinosa said. “This is not just.”

Espinosa was one of dozens of witnesses who spoke against any repeal of the tuition law during a House committee hearing on HB 232 in April. The hearing stretched into the early morning hours as former students relayed how the law changed their lives for the better and gave them opportunities to become successful. In Espinosa’s case, it allowed him and his three siblings — including one who testified alongside him — to go to college in state and maintain successful careers in Texas.

“I’m here 24 years later to tell you that this works, and this is not a giveaway, but rather, this is something that all Texans deserve,” Espinosa said during the April hearing.

This article originally appeared in at . The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.