The Trump administration has relentlessly undercut the stability of the early care and education system—terrorizing immigrants who are essential to the national child care infrastructure and a crucial part of communities across the country; putting basic needs further out of reach for families, particularly those with low incomes; and undermining the needs of children. Federal actions such as freezing resources, imposing new administrative rules on Head Start and state agencies, and mass federal layoffs have further destabilized the already underfunded child care system for families and providers nationwide.
As the second year of President Donald Trump’s second administration approaches, the administration is increasingly taking actions that undermine the child care system and terrorize its already vulnerable workforce. At the end of December, a YouTube video posted by a right-wing influencer depicted his attempts to gain unauthorized access to a number of Minnesota child care centers in an effort to prove allegations of fraud. On the basis of this video, and without further independent investigation, the administration froze Minnesota’s federal child care funding. A week later, the administration froze more than $10 billion in child care and family assistance funding for four additional states—California, Colorado, Illinois, and New York—affecting programs that are not the subject of fraud allegations. A “defend the spend” mandate for the remaining 45 states has further stoked fear among providers amid stricter measures for accessing critical child care funding. This heightened burden comes as the implementation of the administration’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill puts such strain on state budgets that many states are preemptively restricting access to child care assistance due to limited funding.
Less than a day after the five affected states filed a lawsuit to prevent the funding freeze from going into effect, a judge granted a temporary stay, directing the administration to release the funding it would have blocked for the next two weeks while the suit is pending. But the administration’s attempt to leverage access to funding for crucial social and early learning services is in keeping with its broader posture toward families and the early childhood community, which still faces uncertainty ahead. The new funding restrictions would have affected an estimated 339,000 children across the five states—including 176,000 children under the age of 5—and an estimated 96,000 total child care providers.* As many as 23,000 children in Minnesota alone faced a potential loss of services, including those from families who do not receive subsidies but nevertheless depend on programs likely facing cuts.** These actions reflect a broader pattern of politicization by the administration that serves to strip children and families of their child care options, endanger educators, and further destabilize the early education system.
Online vigilantism fosters fear—not accountability—for early educators and endangers children
It is crucial to hold those who commit fraud accountable, but the Trump administration’s recent allegations were used to justify freezing the funds of states that opposed the president’s policies and the continued vilification of immigrants across the country while doing nothing to ensure program integrity. These actions are part of the administration’s playbook: terrorizing vulnerable families while dismantling existing accountability measures that have broad-reaching consequences—in this case, for the early educator community and children’s safety.
In Chicago last November, for instance, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained an infant classroom teacher, following her into the building while parents were attempting to drop their children off for care. Not only was the incident an example of needless aggression, but it was done in the presence of terrified children.
The informal deputizing of everyday individuals—including encouraging “citizen journalists” to attempt unauthorized entry to private child care programs in order to pursue fraud allegations—to do the work of legitimate law enforcement or government agency investigators has also resulted in widespread harassment of providers.*** Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown stated that his office had received several reports of Somali child care providers in the state being harassed and accused of fraud without evidence. Providers also reported online actors videotaping their program facilities, receiving threats of violence, and experiencing instances of vandalism. According to NBC News, “many of the people making the videos are affiliated with small conservative websites or have ties to political groups.” The administration’s promotion of vigilante actors and their videos endangers child care providers and children by encouraging extremists to unlawfully demand entry to child care programs. Child care programs often have safety measures in place, including controlled access, staff training to deal with access requests, background checks for employees, and sometimes cameras for internal monitoring, but like public schools they typically lack the resources to have any kind of permanent security on site that could help to mitigate or diffuse conflict and prevent unauthorized access.
Existing antifraud mechanisms cannot be upheld when funding is suspended
There are numerous existing safeguards to prevent, detect, and mitigate fraud across all federal social support programs. But the administration has laid off half the staff of the Office of Child Care—along with inspectors general across 18 federal agencies—who were responsible for conducting program audits and ensuring compliance, paradoxically undermining alleged concerns about fraud in the child care system. Widespread cuts to funding not only threaten child care access for thousands of children nationwide, but it also undermines states’ ability to exercise those existing antifraud mechanisms. States are already required to provide the federal Office of Child Care with information related to program integrity activities as well as corrective actions aimed at addressing instances of improper payments—including accidental payments to families who may no longer qualify for assistance.
The Trump administration has established a hotline page for reporting suspected fraud on the Administration for Children and Families’ website, but steps such as these encourage vigilantism and fail to address real concerns. Individuals who take it upon themselves to police private child care programs in an extralegal attempt to uncover fraud not only undermine legitimate efforts by officials to ensure program integrity, but disrupt child care services, threaten early educators, and terrorize children. And the administration’s broad-brush approach to restricting funds weakens an already tenuous child care sector, penalizing children and undermining their access to crucial early education services.
The Trump administration seeks to further weaken the federal child care program, undermining providers and families
The administration is also attempting to tie the recent allegations of widespread fraud to provisions in a new regulatory change to the federal child care assistance program—the Child Care and Development Block Grant. The regulatory change was initially announced by the administration in 2025 before any such allegations gained public attention. The notice aims to rescind a 2024 rule, as part of a broader effort to undo Biden-era initiatives, that stabilized payment structures to pay providers more fairly and lowered costs for families. Rescinding the rule would further weaken an already fragile and underfunded system upon which an estimated 215,000 providers and 870,000 families depend.
The payment structures encouraged by the 2024 rule enabled providers to access funding on a reliable basis and to receive payment that they need to operate their program even if a child is temporarily absent for illness or emergency. These payment structures are essential to building a stable, transparent, and viable child care system and have reduced administrative burden on providers; several states already have implemented changes to their payment structures accordingly. The 2024 rule—which also set restrictions on family copayments, reducing their overall cost burden—aimed to increase transparency and support program compliance. The administration’s effort to roll back the rule will weaken that system, undermine efforts to ensure accountability, drive up costs for parents, and risk child care program closures, which threaten access for families nationwide.
Conclusion
Quality child care is the backbone of the nation’s economy and the foundation for children’s success throughout life. Early educators enter the field because of a commitment to supporting children’s early learning and benefitting their communities. But the actions taken by the administration undermine those efforts and embolden everyday individuals to replace existing federal accountability measures, terrorizing educators and endangering teachers’ and children’s safety. The Trump administration is once again attempting to steal from vulnerable young children and their families, stoking widespread panic and uncertainty and undermining an already fragile child care system. The resulting harms will be felt directly by providers, families, and—most importantly—children.
*Authors’ note: This estimate is inclusive of all CCDBG-accepting providers, both licensed and legally unregulated. The estimate of affected center, family, and group-home care providers is approximately 44,200.
**Authors’ note: This estimate was reported by a Minnesota child care advocate on January 7, 2026 and is on file with the authors.
***Authors’ note: Clip from January 7, 2026 House Oversight Committee hearing. The full recording is available at https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/oversight-of-fraud-and-misuse-of-federal-funds-in-minnesota-part-i/.
The authors would like to thank Julie Kashen, Dr. Ruth Friedman, Madeline Shepherd, Mishka Espey, Silva Mathema, Debu Gandhi, Jared Bass, and Colin Seeberger for their review and insights in support of this column.