The Trump administration has launched a war against children

During Trump’s speech to a joint session of the Congress in February, the president presented a boy named DJ Daniel, who was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2018. The 13 -year -old had a uniform of application of the law because “he has always dreamed of becoming a police officer,” Trump explained. DJ and his father sat in the gallery overlooking the house of the house full of some of the most powerful people in the world.

The president invited DJ to highlight the objective of his administration to stop child cancer rates. “Since 1975, childhood cancer rates have increased by more than 40%,” Trump said while highlighting the history of DJ. “Reversing this trend is one of the main priorities for our new presidential commission to make the United States again healthy.”

In fact, however, the so -called government efficiency department, which Trump created to reduce government spending, wants to reduce around $ 4 billion that are destined to cancer investigation, including Investigation for childhood cancers. Trump is trying dismantle efforts Develop priests for the same type of pediatric cancer that DJ has experienced. DJ doctors, who have kept him alive during the last seven years, are now facing Potentially devastating federal fund cuts.

Since Trump assumed the position, this pattern was repeated again and again. The promise of safeguarding children has become a main pillar of Trump’s second mandate, with the administration insisting that “President Trump will always protect American children.”

“President Trump was strongly chosen by millions of parents who trusted him with the security and prosperity of his children, something that the previous president neglected with the open borders, the radical policies ofi and an economy that contained families,” he told News, a White House spokesman, Harrison Fields. “In less than 70 days, President Trump has fulfilled his promises to put the United States first and protect the children of the United States.”

Trump has also signed a series of executive orders that point to children, perhaps more significantly, one that abolish the Department of EducationCut crucial infrastructure that supports millions of public school students throughout the country.

Protecting children from the Men of the Cultural Bogey is another Trump key issue, whether measures to protect children from imagined dangers of “Transgender ideology”Or the alleged”murderers, people traffickers, gang members”Crossing the southern border. Its actions in this kingdom do not convey a significant benefit, since the dangers it describes are very exaggerated or completely imagined, but its administration has visited tremendous damage to children from marginalized groups.

The president signed an executive order that prohibits transgender athletes in sports, even in primary schools, apparently to keep the girls safe. But it is likely that the prohibition puts transgender and cisgenero under a microscope, and could Promote practices such as gynecological exams to determine the sex of a child.

The families of the United States are beginning to feel the pressure of Trump’s shameless attacks in some of the country’s most vulnerable residents: children.

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order to eliminate citizenship from birth rights.

Monica and her husband live in the United States due to their promise of freedom, and because they could not stay in Venezuela. “We were at risk of being killed,” he told News recently, through a translator.

The couple criticized the regime of Nicolás Maduro, and in 2019, they were no longer safe. Then they fled to the United States, chasing asylum and making a new life. Six years later, a miracle. Monica was pregnant.

“There is always happiness every time you wake up in the morning, because you can physically see that the baby is growing,” said Mónica, who is being identified by a pseudonym due to his ongoing asylum case. “I don’t think anything can make a mother happier than seeing every morning how her baby grows.”

Then Trump assumed the position. Among its first actions: Sign an order To end birth citizenship, the constitutional right that any baby born in the United States is an American citizen, except in rare cases as the children of diplomats. “We are the only country in the world that does this,” Trump declared by signing the order. Actually, the major majority From the countries of North and South America they have citizenship of birth law.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Monica said. “I have always seen this as a fundamental constitutional right that protects children … we want our son to be born in freedom.”

Monica was a doctor in Venezuela and knew how stress could affect her pregnancy. However, in the first days of Trump’s mandate, he landed at the hospital due to a medical emergency that his doctor attributed to stress. She has recovered since then.

“The first quarter was very, very hard for me,” said Monica.

It is difficult to understand the threat Trump represents his son. Venezuela does not have a consulate in the United States. And as asylum applicant in the United States, Monica cannot leave the country. If Trump’s order is maintained, then not only will it rewrite centuries of American legal precedent, It could also make Monica’s son, and an incalculable number of other children who can be born in the United States, without a state.

“I would not have nationality,” he said.

Trump has placed hundreds of thousands of children at risk of becoming part of what Some call A “permanent lower class”. In 2022, “there were approximately 255,000 births of citizen children to non -citizen mothers without legal status (undocumented) and approximately 153,000 births to two undocumented parents”, a group of general prosecutors democrats noted.

For an administration called itself pro-son and pro-family, “it is sometimes difficult for me to see humanity in these policies,” Mónica said. “It’s so scary that people would be against families.”

Monica felt relieved by mothers with imminent expiration dates that were protected by the order. But she and many others are still at risk.

“I know there are millions of mothers who are so scared, and that they have the same fear as me,” he said. “I get strength to know that we, as immigrants, have these rights because the Constitution of the United States protects our babies, not us, but us.”

Jianan Liu for News

Attacks to the Department of Education could leave disabled children without resources, or resources.

Each year, the Department of Education spends billions of dollars to educate and protect the 7.5 million children with disabilities that represent 15% of public school students in the United States.

This money is intended for myriad things that can help a child with disabilities to succeed at school, including the payment of special education teachers and provide resources such as the interpretation of services and physiotherapy.

But the Department of Education has been at the top of Trump’s blocking since its campaign. He has frequently talked about dismantling the department completely, which The Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, has supported. Last month, he signed an executive order that expressed his intention to completely eliminate the department. Doing it would require an act of Congress, but in the meantime, the department has announced radical dismissals that affect almost half of the employees.

Defenders care that children with disabilities support the worst part of these cuts. Even if the programs required by the law continue to operate, education experts are worried that there will be enough staff to effectively administer special education programs.

In 1975, Congress approved the Education Law of All Hidyped Children, which was renamed the Law of Education of Individuals with Disabilities in 1990. Demand that children with disabilities should be able to access a free and equal education. Before the historical law, the treatment and services available for the disabled children were left to the states, and around 1.8 million disabled children They were not educated at all.

“You had some states that adopted students with disabilities and some states that said: ‘It is not our problem,” said Robyn Linscott, director of Education and Family Policy in the ARC, a non -profit organization that protects the rights of people with disabilities.

Under idea, public schools must have individualized education plans, which establish the specific needs of a student and what they require to succeed. The law also guarantees that children with disabilities are not secluded to their non -disabled colleagues, and ensure that they are not unjustly disciplined. The Education Department spent $ 15 billion on students with disabilities last year.

But many of the profits obtained for students with disabilities could be lost if the Trump administration goes out with it.

The 2025 project, the plan backed by the Heritage Foundation for a second Trump term, requires that ideas funds disseminate the states as “without string” block subsidies, which means that these states would have flexibility on how to spend money on students with disabilities and would no longer be subject to federal supervision. Without federal government mandates, access to education for disabled children could once again depend on the postal code.

This could happen even when the Trump administration makes M A difficult for disabled students and their families present complaints about violations of rights through the civil rights office. Even with the implementation of the idea, students with disabilities still face more discrimination in school than children without being and are suspended at higher rates than his companions.

The Department of Education abruptly arrested investigations of approximately 12,000 complaints that were pending in the OCR when Trump’s second mandate began, According to Propublic. More than half of those complaints were children with disabilities who alleged that they received an unequal treatment in their classrooms.

The department’s layoffs have reached the OCR strongly, and its 12 regional offices have been reduced to five.

The Administration has indicated that the supervision of ideas could move to the Department of Health and Human Services, where it was administered through the creation of the Department of Education. McMahon mentioned the idea during his confirmation hearing, and after signing the executive order to dismantle the department, Trump, Trump He said to journalists which planned “immediately” to move the “special needs” programs under the HHS. (He also said that student loans would move to the administration of small businesses).

“Pell subsidies, Title 1, financing resources for children with disabilities and special needs will be completely preserved,” Trump said.

But defenders are concerned that moving from special education programs under HHS would mean losing institutional knowledge and crucial experience.

“SOCA all profits obtained in the last 50 years,” said Linscott.

The HHS has not been immune to important employment cuts throughout the federal government, and the agency recently announced that it would reduce about 20,000 employees. Even before it was clear how deep the HHS cuts would be, Linscott said she was worried that students with disabilities could fall through cracks in an agency already with little personal.

“They have to administer Medicaid, Medicare, the National Institute of Health, the Centers for Disease Control … Special Education would become a last moment idea?” Linscott said.

Even before the main layoffs of the Department of Education, the Trump administration was already cutting in the agency. Doge reduced millions of dollars in contracts for research programs. This research allows educators to understand best practices for positive educational results, such as which teaching method can help children learn or solve problems.

Many of the canceled contracts were close to completing, which means that the federal government had already spent the money, but will have nothing to show in return.

“This is the equivalent of burning money, “Antoinette Flores, director of Responsibility and Quality of Higher Education in New America, told Newste. “How can you help students improve without knowing what is working?”

One of the canceled contracts was for a program that helps children with disabilities Make the transition from high school to universityChalkbeat reported. A father told Chakbeat that cancellation was causing “heartbreak” for his family. As a result, schools were also trapped trying to reallocate teachers to other works in the district whose salaries were covered by the program.

The Education Department did not respond to a News request for comments on the changes it is making.

Republicans imagine replacing the Department of Education with a school coupons program, which would mean giving public money to families to send their children to private schools of their choice.

In particular, the 2025 project establishes a plan for an increase in the coupons of private schools for disabled children, although it is not required that private schools have individualized plans or comply with federal rules on the protection of disabled students of unfair punishment.

Education defenders are concerned that radical cuts in the Department of Education and Trump’s plan to “send education to the United States” can undo the progress made about the same access to education for children with disabilities.

“It goes back 50 years ago when students with disabilities were educated in separate institutions, if they do,” said Linscott.

Jianan Liu for News

Trump withdrew a long data rule that kept immigration officials outside schools.

After several local apartment complexes were raided by immigration officials and customs compliance with the United States in February, Alex Marrero, the Superintendent of Denver’s public schools, went to some schools to see how the students were.

“Is it one of them?” Marrero says a student asked in Spanish when he entered the classroom dressed in suit and tie. The child had just seen immigration officials hitting the doors of the apartments that demanded that people get out of hiding, and was afraid of having come more to school.

Before Trump returned to power, most people would not worry that an ICE official can perform operations in a public school. For years, even during Trump’s first mandate, ICE agents and the border patrol were forbidden to enter “sensitive areas”, including churches, hospitals and schools. But in his zeal of fulfilling the promise of the campaign to deport millions of people, the Trump administration rescinds the rule, and now the Approximately 600,000 undocumented children Those who attend school in the United States are technically a fair game.

The fear that ICE officials make raids in schools has not yet been carried out, but the possibility is to cause fear and panic among immigrant families, and some children are being lost an education for that. Schools throughout the country reported a fall in assistance After the guide on sensitive areas turned back.

“A school that exceeded 90% daily is in the 80s, and that is not by chance,” Marrero told News. “My directors already ask me to be aware and indulgent about the assistance objectives for this year.”

“I think the elimination of the rule was to start fear,” Marrero added, “and I think they have succeeded.” (DPS has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, demanding that the sensitive location rule be restored. A federal judge in February Blocked ice to operate in certain places of worship after being sued by a group of religious organizations largely Quoke).

ICE did not respond to News’s request for comments.

It is likely that the fear of what Trump threatens to have adverse effects on children. Increased anxiety around the immigration law can lead to bad educational results In students that come from immigrant families. And a study that analyzed the impact of a strict anti -immigrant law in Arizona found that some children were so worried about being attacked by the ice that were fear of leaving their homes at all.

“This is supposed to be a safe shelter, but I don’t know if it is already.”

– Alex Marrero, Superintendent of Denver Public Schools

In February, Border Patrol agents As reported, he boarded a bus Taking students in a swimming team at high school at Las Cruces, New Mexico. They allegedly questioned the driver, who did not speak English, and then tried to interrogate the students. The school district later He issued a statement Saying that the students were on an unmarked charter bus and the administrators were working with federal officials to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.

Only a few weeks before, said Mike Banks, head of the US border patrol. During a News interview that it was “absurd” to think that agents would address school buses. I was responding to a School district in Texas that had sent home a letter Warning parents that border patrol officials could address the buses that lead students to activities after school.

Undocumented children are guaranteed the right to attend public school thanks to the case of the 1982 Supreme Court, Plyler v. Doe But Republicans, emboldened by Trump’s promise to deport 12 million people, seem to be trying to get the current conservative majority court to reconsider the problem.

Several states, including Texas, Oklahoma and Tennessee, have introduced invoices that would prevent undocumented children from attending school. The Heritage Foundation wrote last year that states should approve such laws to trigger a lawsuit that could reach the Supreme Court.

What was once a security place is becoming another source of concern, fear and anxiety for undocumented children.

Marrero said that, on Denver’s raids, two students who arrived early at school said that their mother had told them to run there, which implies that they would be fine once they were at school. Marrero reluctantly thought for himself: “This is supposed to be a safe refuge, but I don’t know if so.”

Federal funds for public schools have been linked to teaching on ‘gender ideology’.

Less than two weeks after his second term, Trump signed an executive order that threatened stop federal funds For schools that provide instruction on “gender ideology and ideology of discriminatory equity”, the vague phrases that say that defenders could lead to any discussion about the breed or the issues LGBTQ+ cut of the classrooms throughout the country.

Federal funds can buoy programs that help all types of students, including those that are low income. Many states depend largely on federal funds, and losing this financial support could have disastrous consequences for K-12 students.

The Order also ordered the Attorney General Pam Bondi to work with the State Police to investigate K-12 teachers and school officials who “violate the law” by “facilitating the social transition of a minor.” This directive occurred after Trump months pushing Lies without foundation About children under surgery during the school day without parents’ consent.

Actually, the social transition, where a person begins to publicly express their gender identity through a change in the name, pronouns, hairstyle or clothing, is often the first step for a trans child who can consider the medical transition later in adolescence. A support environment, while children of the social transition can be critical to relieve dysphoria feelings, as well as isolation and depression. Trans young people who were affirmed by colleagues and adults with the use of their name and precise pronouns reported a significant fall in the symptoms of severe depression, a 2018 study found. But most of the time, trans and non -binary young people do not have welcome school or homemade environments. They experience more levels to cough of bullying and violence, and it is more likely to have Unstable housing Due to unpaid families, compared to Cisgender students.

Now Trump’s order on education could cause learning environments to be more hostile to trans and gender students who do not make up, as well as the educators who openly support them. Parents fear the order, which is based on the attack of the years of Republican state legislators who have advanced invoices to forest any instruction on LGBTQ+ issues and promoted the harmful rhetoric that compare teachers with transinclusive materials to “hairdressers”, will have a chilling effect on trans and non -binary students.

Brigit Stevens said that the current orientation of the current administration of trans young people, together with the attacks in their state, has already made Iowa “less habitable” for its non -binary and gender teenager.

Stevens said that when his son, Berry, now 14 years old, came out in sixth grade, his family was “completely on board” and his school quickly updated Berry’s school records to reflect his change in the name and pronouns. But in the next three years, Berry classmates began to intimidate them, in poor condition and using their Dead name. When Stevens went to the director, he was surprised when he was told that “there are two sides” and a limit for the ways in which a teacher could intervene, since there were “parents on both sides of this problem.”

“This is not really a problem on which there are sides,” Stevens recalled, he said. “What this is, is my son’s name and pronouns and we hope they will be respected.”

Both parents and teachers fear that these instances will become more common, and that the Trump administration will suffocate any resource. The mass cuts in the civil rights office of the Department of Education have left less routes for the families of LGBTQ+ young people and young people to present complaints from title IX about cases of discrimination based on sex and race.

Skye Tooley, a public school teacher in Los Angeles, has witnessed first -hand some of the challenges of being a trans person in education. Tooley, who is trans and not binary, said that in the past the parents have complained and eliminated understands of their classroom because they did not like the identity of Tooley. Other times, said Tooley, school administrators have lost or dead dead even with multiple reminders.

TOOLEY believes that school districts should take a greater position to show support for trans young people these days. Meanwhile, Tooley said they refuse to hide their identity in the classroom.

“Every year I ‘get out” and I tell the families and the students who I am, “said Tooley.” My presence in itself is to teach LGBTQ+ existence. ”

Jianan Liu for News

Athlete students are candidates for scrutiny and surveillance.

Trans athletes may have been the largest target of the campaign against trans trans. During his joint speech to Congress, Trump welcomed a former volleyball player from high school who said he had been seriously injured by a trans player, although it is not clear if the player who shot a ball was trans was trans.

In early February, Trump signed An executive order Threatening to retain funds from schools that allow trans athletes to play in female teams or use female locker room, stating that these actions are equivalent to violations of title IX.

Shortly after, the Department of Education began investigating several school districts That had pointed out that they would continue to allow Trans athletes to participate. And after Maine’s governor told the President that the State would continue his own law that prohibits discrimination based on gender identity, thus challenging Trump’s executive order, Trump’s executive order Six federal agencies directed to the State. Only two Trans high school girls playing in women’s sports teams in the state this year.

Trump has repeatedly affirmed that the existence of Trans athletes raises a great threat to girls and women who practice sports. But there is only a handful of openly trans athletes throughout the country. The president of the NCAA estimates that there is less than 10 trans athletes compete at the university level, and the American Union of Civil Libertads estimates that there are about five trans girls Playing in K-12 girls teams.

LGBTQ+ defenders and some Democrats have warned that Trump’s prohibition to trans athletes could damage all children, since he could open the door to greater gender surveillance in any type of activity or space segregated by sex for children. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Dn.y.) warned That Trump’s order and a similar bill in Congress aimed at the participation of Trans athletes in sports could lead to “genital and genital and girls genital exams.”

Sara, the mother of a 16 -year -old trans player in New Hampshire, is very aware that her daughter could become a goal. His daughter is like any other teenage girl: she has curtain bangs in the style of Sabrina Carpenter, she loves to dance and play with her teammates, and wear bright dresses for school dances. She has a support team, and when it runs in the field, it is difficult to choose it from the crowd.

Even before Trump was re -elected, Sara said, there were times when her daughter was pointed out, often during the games. Sara remembers a game in which opponents painted “PG” on their faces to connot “protect girls’ sports.” In another, some noisy parents carried bracelets with XX to point out the female chromosomes and caused a scene until they were asked to leave.

Instances such as these have become too common, and the Vitriolo against Trans girls has resulted in reaction against CIS girls and other athletes that are not satisfied gender. In 2022, an Athletics Organization of the Utah high school He secretly investigated a female athlete After receiving complaints from the parents, and in 2023 a father harassed a 9 -year -old girl at a track meeting demanding that it demonstrate its gender.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds through Getty Images

Crucial medical care for trans children could disappear.

Before Trump’s second term began, Jill Bjorklund, the mother of a 9 -year -old trans girl, was considering taking her family out of Iowa. The State, once a west bastion of the west medium for the rights of homosexuals, approved a law two years ago that prohibits the attention that gender affirms to minors and prohibits trans students of bathrooms or costumes that correspond to their gender identity. Earl this year, Iowa became the first state of Eliminate gender identity of its civil rights code.

Bjorklund’s family has been traveling to Minnesota to establish a relationship in a gender clinic, since his daughter can soon be eligible for treatments such as puberty blockers.

Bjorklund said he makes him “physically ill” considering moving to a different state where the attention affirmed by gender for minors is legal, especially because he uproots their lives and moving to a completely different state may not guarantee Your daughter can access attention.

In January, Trump signed a Executive order That threatened to retain federal funds from hospitals that provide puberty blockers, hormonal therapy and surgeries for people under 19. (The surgeries that affirm the genre for minors are extremely rare). Some hospitals in New York, Colorado, Massachusetts and California began to stop care for new and established patients.

Two federal judges temporarily blocked this order to enter into force, and some hospitals have resumed the care of new and established pediatric patients. But the future of access to this care remains in limbo. The Supreme Court is It is expected to deliver a decision This summer on whether a prohibition of Tennessee of the attention affirmed by gender for young people violates the Constitution, and defenders say that the decision will not only affect trans young people but also provide legal clarity about the future of body autonomy.

Bjorklund’s family decided to legally change his daughter’s name before the 2024 elections, as well as ensure a new passport and a social security card. His decision was good. On his first day back at the White House, Trump signed an executive order that declared that there were only “two sexes, men and women”, which quickly caused the State Department and the Social Security Administration To prohibit trans and non -binary people updating their federal documents.

“When you together,” Bjorklund said, referring to Trump’s orders that threaten the ability of trans children to access medical care, practice sports, use baths and live openly, “you really are approaching our children.”