By Andy O’Brien
Whether or not 13 federally funded programs will continue to serve undocumented immigrants in Maine is up in the air. On July 10, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that the programs would be off limits to undocumented immigrants. Then on July 25, 21 attorneys general, including Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey, filed a lawsuit challenging that decision. The Donald Trump administration then agreed to a temporary stay on the order in the 21 states that filed the lawsuit through September 3. The temporary stay has now been extended to Sept. 10.
Head Start, which serves over one million children ages birth to 5 from low-income families each year, is among the 13 federally funded programs that would become unavailable to noncitizens. Other federally funded programs such as adult education, Meals on Wheels, community health centers, and workforce programs would also become unavailable to undocumented immigrants.
If enacted, the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict access to public assistance benefits would reverse nearly 30 years of precedent. President Bill Clinton’s Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 already dramatically restricted access to social welfare programs and disqualified certain categories of noncitizens from receiving certain public assistance benefits, including Medicaid (which Maine calls MaineCare) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
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Since 1996, the federal government has told states that no one has to produce government identification to enter a soup kitchen, food bank, or community health center.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is leading the lawsuit filed by the 21 attorneys general. “For decades, states like New York have built health, education, and family support systems that serve anyone in need,” James wrote in a statement. “These programs work because they are open, accessible, and grounded in compassion. Now, the federal government is pulling that foundation out from under us overnight, jeopardizing cancer screenings, early childhood education, primary care, and so much more. This is a baseless attack on some of our country’s most effective and inclusive public programs, and we will not let it stand.”
Trump’s executive order conflicts with the Violence Against Women Act, which requires domestic violence programs to provide services without regard to someone’s immigration status. Although federal grant guidelines require that shelters must comply with executive orders, they also state that they don’t prohibit shelters from serving all people in compliance with existing laws. So far the federal government has not rescinded funding for shelters in Maine.
“We strongly believe that we are in compliance with federal law. Executive orders are not new laws,” explained Francine Garland Stark, Executive Director of the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence. “Executive orders or changes in other grant requirements don’t trump the law. This [executive order] is in violation of a law that’s already on the books.”
Stark added that the president’s immigration executive orders are encouraging the public to surveil their neighbors and are creating a climate of fear. The screening requirement appears to be part of the president’s efforts to make it as difficult as possible for undocumented immigrants to remain in the U.S.
In a statement on July 10, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., argued that the federal government had been using tax dollars to “incentivize illegal immigration.” The action, he said, “protects vital resources for the American people.”
The lawsuit argues that the new rules will pose an insurmountable administrative burden for social service providers and will prevent low-income people from accessing critical nutrition, education, and healthcare programs. It notes that many of these programs – like homeless shelters and emergency crisis lines – “cannot realistically” verify immigration status at the door. James also noted that programs like Head Start “operate on razor-thin margins” and likely can’t absorb the administrative cost of running screenings. Requirements to verify immigration status will force critical community programs to make the “impossible choice between shutting their doors or risking an immediate cutoff in federal funding.”
“For the first time, millions of people are facing a new demand before they can access the Nation’s most essential programs: ‘show me your papers,’ ” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit further notes that social service providers would need significant training to learn how to implement immigration verification processes because they would have to distinguish undocumented immigrants from other immigrants, such as asylum applicants with work authorization, individuals who have student visas, and immigrants who have green cards.
