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bronxiteforever

(10,720 posts)
Sat Jul 12, 2025, 06:22 PM Jul 12

Then They Came For The Head Start Kids, And We Said F*ck You, No Kid Is 'Illegal' [View all]

DOKTOR ZOOM at Wonkette
JUL 12, 2025

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. added further shame to his family’s legacy Thursday, announcing that effective immediately, undocumented immigrant children will be banned from the Head Start preschool program, which not only provides child care and preparation for kindergarten to low-income preschoolers, but also provides school meals and health screenings. The point is to finally crack down on undocumented three- to five-year-olds to send the message that they must not come to the US without proper legal authorization.

In addition to kicking an unknown number of children out of Head Start, the change in HHS policy also bars everyone in the country without legal status from multiple HHS programs including access to public clinics, family planning, mental health and substance abuse treatment, and the federal low-income energy assistance program. Sure, some people will probably get sick and die, but that’s the point…
People living in the US without authorization are already prohibited from most public benefits like Medicaid and SNAP, but a 1998 rule enacted by the Clinton administration allowed them to use some public health programs, including Head Start, under the logic that a healthy public, including children attending preschool, is actually better than sickness and ignorance.

Kennedy reversed that interpretation, redefining Head Start and a bunch of other HHS programs as “federal public benefits’’ that are only available to citizens and to permanent legal residents. You know, at least until Stephen Miller figures out how to invalidate all green cards, too. The MAGA faithful can never be satisfied in their demands for eradication of ILLEGALS. Kennedy said in a press release that even the most basic health and education measures “incentivize illegal immigration,” …Yasmin Vinci, executive director of the National Head Start Association, issued a statement pointing out that in its 60 years of existence, Head Start “has never required documentation of immigration status as a condition for enrollment,” and that nothing in the Head Start Act justifies the new restrictions.

More here
https://www.wonkette.com/p/then-they-came-for-the-head-start

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