Protecting Young People, Families, and Communities and Building a Healthy Democracy

With lightning speed, the Trump administration has undertaken a deliberate campaign to sow chaos and confusion in its first days in office, grounding federal agencies to a halt and disrupting the day-to-day work of child and family-serving organizations across the country in a radical effort to refashion our democratic institutions and advance an agenda that appears singularly focused on inspiring fear and marginalizing people based on their immigration status, sexual orientation and gender identity, race and ethnicity, and disability status. In so doing, the administration has lost sight of the most essential function of government: to protect people and provide services that promote the public welfare and meaningfully improve people’s lives. We must do better.

In a flurry of executive orders and actions over the administration’s first week and a half, we have not only seen the Office of Management and Budget issue a vaguely worded and almost certainly illegal freeze on government grantmaking and contracting that immediately caused state agencies and community-based organizations to experience difficulty accessing funding for critical programs and services. We have also seen the administration attempt to hollow out the civil service that does the day-to-day work of keeping government programs running, and ban diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility work across federal agencies and among federal contractors, leading agency leaders to place staff on administrative leave effective immediately and cancel government contracts that help improve access to critical programs and services.

The administration has done all of this while making clear that its ultimate goal is to marginalize and exclude immigrants, LGTBQ+ people, and Black and Brown people, and fracture our families and communities. In another set of executive actions, it has laid the groundwork for mass deportations by green-lighting immigration arrests at sensitive locations like child care programs and schools—overturning protections that have been in place over three successive administrations to ensure that children are not frightened to leave home or forced to witness a parents’ detention. It has rigidly defined gender, directing federal agencies to revise identity documents and immediately rescind federal guidance on everything from supporting LGBTQ+ students in schools to enforcing Title IX—without regard for the experiences and needs of young people who are simply trying to live their lives and succeed in school. It has even sought to deny citizenship to children born in the United States if their parents are undocumented or on temporary visas.

We expect a new administration to bring with it new policy priorities and positions, but what we have seen so far from the second Trump administration is an unprecedented disregard for our democratic institutions and willingness to harm the families and communities which it is responsible for protecting, in direct defiance of the executive branch’s statutory and constitutional obligations. In its assault on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, for example, the Trump administration is not only reversing the work of the Biden administration, but it has in some cases, halted agencies’ decades-long and statutorily-obligated work to promote workplace accessibility for federal workers so that people with disabilities can contribute their skills to running an efficient and effective government. In attempting to end birthright citizenship by executive order, meanwhile, the President is defying over a century of legal precedent and widespread agreement among legal scholars that only a constitutional amendment can restrict birthright citizenship. Not surprisingly, many of the administration’s actions are being challenged in the courts. Last week, a federal judge temporarily blocked the birthright citizenship executive order, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional,” and on Tuesday of this week, a federal judge issued an administrative stay on OMB’s funding freeze, leading the administration to rescind the memo ordering the freeze a day later.

As the President and his administration throw darts at the wall to sees what sticks, their callous indifference to how halting the regular functions of government and targeting marginalized groups are affecting real people across the country is disorienting and dismaying. With each new assault, they are creating an atmosphere where people fear that federally-funded services that they have come to rely on—from child care programs, to public education, to health care—might suddenly disappear, where families fear leaving their homes, where workers fear losing their jobs, and where parents even fear that their future children will not have the protections of citizenship, and may one day be stateless. This is not what a healthy democracy looks like.

In moments like these, widespread chaos and distrust can make it difficult to organize effectively and weaken our bonds of solidarity – including how we connect to, and care for, each other. But no one stands alone in this fight. We can and must recognize the challenge before us, so that we can mobilize to overcome it together.

At CSSP, we are steadfast in our commitment to our vision of a society in which all young people and families can lead healthy and happy lives: free from fear, supported by an affirming and welcoming community, and with the security and autonomy to make their own choices and set their own direction. Stable democratic institutions, equitable and family-centered federal policies and programs, and a clear-eyed recognition of the role that racism and intersecting forms of discrimination play in shaping people’s opportunities are critical to achieving this vision. As we have for the last 45 years, we will put in the work and fight to make this vision a reality today, and in the days and months to come.

Now is the time to join together, defend the critical work that government agencies and community-based organizations do to make social services and family supports more effective and accessible to everyone who needs them, and lead the fight to protect and promote the well-being of young people, families, and communities whom this administration seeks to marginalize. We hope you will join us.