Arizona joins lawsuit challenging Trump’s citizenship requirements for Head Start, Meals on Wheels

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Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes joined a coalition of 20 other state AGs in suing the Trump administration over changes aimed at preventing people who aren’t U.S. citizens from accessing public-based services. 

Those services include Head Start, Meals on Wheels and the Attorney General’s own Office of Victims Services. 

Mayes’ office argued the change was done improperly and will hurt communities far beyond those who receive those services directly. 

“Requiring victims to provide paperwork to prove their immigration status would have a substantial detrimental impact on our ability to effectively provide services,” Kirsten Flores, director for the Arizona AG’s Office of Victims’ Services, said in a declaration filed with the lawsuit. “It is also important for Advocates to build a relationship of trust and confidence with victims they serve to ensure victims’ rights are protected and that they will cooperate with the prosecution by appearing for hearings and providing testimony in order to secure justice.” 

Earlier this month, the Trump administration issued new guidance to the U.S. Departments of Health and Human services, Education, Labor and Justice that reinterpreted a 1996 law created to give aid to needy families and families with dependent children. 

Those changes prevent agencies from using any federal funds to provide services to individuals who are unable to verify their immigration status. This is the first time since it was founded 60 years ago that the Head Start program, which helps prepare young children from low-income families for school, would bar children based on immigration status. 

According to Mayes’ office approximately 15,000 Arizona children could be impacted by the changes to Head Start qualification rules. More than 35,000 Arizonans who receive health care annually at the 53 Title X clinics statewide that receive federal money are also at risk of losing care. 

State programs are expected to comply immediately with the new rules. 

“This is yet another outrageous attempt by this administration to workaround the law and disrupt critical services Arizonans depend on every day,” Mayes said in a press release about the lawsuit. “What do they think will happen when Head Start, Meals on Wheels, and Victim Services shutter? Arizonans will have to foot the bill for emergency childcare, scramble to figure out how to feed their family, and go without the support they deserve and are owed by law.” 

“The hungry have never needed to produce government identification to enter a soup kitchen or food bank,” the attorneys general wrote in the lawsuit. “Parents have never needed to produce their children’s citizenship or immigration records before enrolling them in Head Start; those suffering from substance abuse disorders have never needed to bring their passports to a rehabilitation clinic; people facing homelessness or domestic violence have never needed proof of immigration status to walk into a shelter.”

The lawsuit argues that this new change was dumped on agencies that were not ready for it and don’t have the infrastructure to implement it. 

“Chaos has predictably followed,” the attorneys general wrote. “Almost overnight, States and their subgrantees faced the threat of enforcement if they could not dramatically restructure crucial components of their social safety nets to comply with Defendants’ new dictates. The new rules put the States’ community programs to the impossible choice between shutting their doors or risking an immediate cutoff in federal funding.”

The AGs have asked the court to put a temporary block on the changes until the lawsuit has a chance to make its way through the courts. This isn’t the only legal battle with the administration.

Mayes has partnered with other states in more than 20 lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s actions. 

The lawsuit is led by New York Attorney General Letitia James and is joined by Washington, Rhode Island, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia. 

This post was originally authored and published by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy from AZ Mirror via RSS Feed. Join today to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.