April 16, 2025 - Child Care? Or Billionaires?
Trump considers eliminating Head Start, #CommunitiesNotCages Day of Action tomorrow, DC forced into extraordinary measures, and more
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TRUMP’S WAR ON KIDS COMES FOR HEAD START
Reports came out last week that the Trump Administration is considering eliminating Head Start, a program that offers low-income families child care and preschool for their children. In addition to being yet another plank of Project 2025 Trump is seeking to make a reality, this would serve as a new front on Donald Trump’s war on kids that is already coming after Medicaid, childhood vaccination programs, pediatric cancer research, school lunches and funding for K-12 public schools.
Trump’s illegal seizure of funds and firings at the Department of Health and Human Services have already hit Head Start providers hard, but the program continues to ensure more children are fully prepared for school regardless of their circumstances at birth (check here for its long history of great results for kids). Right now, more than 750,000 kids get early learning, meals, development screenings and health care thanks to Head Start – and more than a million parents rely on the program to look after their kids so they can go to work. It offers relief for areas with few child care options and saves working families almost $12,000 a year. Trump wants to make all this go away to pay for more giveaways to Elon Musk and his fellow billionaires.
Let’s be sure to contact our members of Congress and push them to fully fund Head Start – and make sure Trump actually spends the money for our kids. We can find scripts and language to use here, or send this message via Resistbot by texting SIGN PEZVKT to 50409.
WE MUST STAND WITH KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, husband, father, union sheet metal apprentice and 14-year resident of the United States, remains unjustly locked in a Salvadoran prison, and the Trump Administration continues to refuse to obey court orders to bring him home. A federal judge day indicated she is weighing contempt proceedings against the Trump Administration, but it will be at least two weeks before we see progress on that front. It is up to us right now. Let’s continue to call our members of Congress and demand they take action. We can find language and scripts here, or send this message via Resistbot by texting SIGN PTHJLV to 50409.
As promised, Abrego Garcia’s senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) will travel to El Salvador today and attempt to visit him and check on his condition. While this attempt is unlikely to succeed, he is keeping attention on this injustice and showing courage and leadership in a moment that requires it. Let’s call or write Senator Van Hollen’s office to thank him for his efforts.
The Bukele regime in El Salvador is a willing and eager conspirator in Donald Trump’s efforts to lock away whoever he deems a criminal without trial or due process, and seem excited to create a full gulag archipelago on his behalf. Their government’s representatives in the United States can be seen as no different than ICE personnel. There are 29 Salvadoran consulates in the United States, in 20 states and Washington D.C. Let’s consider protesting at one of these locations.
#COMMUNITIESNOTCAGES DAY OF ACTION TOMORROW
The tyrannical imprisonment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia should terrify us all, in particular because it’s just part of Trump’s dangerous crackdown on our immigrant friends and neighbors. The White House is not just disappearing people – it’s expanding the population of those subject to removal to include well over a million people who are here legally, targeting activists, setting traps with citizenship tests, raiding courthouses and schools, and attempting to terrify those they can’t reach into self-deporting. And they are trying to grow the deportation machine by expanding detention camps – even as they claim we can’t afford Medicaid.
Tomorrow, the Immigrant Justice Network, the Detention Watch Network and the American Friends Service Committee are organizing a day of action to demand we invest in #CommunitiesNotCages. They’re holding events in 13 different states, plus a virtual action hour at noon Eastern. Let’s check out the list of events at bit.ly/CNCDOA417 and attend if there’s one near us. If not, we can sign up for the virtual action hour here or send a letter to our members of Congress opposing ICE’s attacks on immigrants here. (This day of action is also a good opportunity to pressure your local leaders to ensure no one goes into immigration court without a lawyer.)
“EXTRAORDINARY” BUDGET CUTS FOR DC THANKS TO MIKE JOHNSON
Mike Johnson’s continuing resolution to keep the government funded utterly screwed Washington, D.C. – forcing them to revert to last year’s budget in the middle of the fiscal year, effectively costing the city a billion dollars in teachers, emergency services and support for public transportation. While the Senate passed a standalone measure (S.1077) to reverse these devastating cuts that even Trump has endorsed, Johnson has ignored it, filling the House’s schedule instead with voter suppression bills and restoring predatory bank fees. Now the costs are starting to hit city residents, as D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser has announced “extraordinary measures” to address this artificial shortfall, including hiring freezes, employee furloughs and facility closures. Let’s reach out to our members of Congress, especially if they’re Republicans, and tell them they need to put this bill on the floor as soon as they come back from recess. We can use language from this Resistbot petition by our friend .
DEFENDING REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM WITH AMERICANS OF CONSCIENCE
In spite of voters repeatedly making it clear we want our rights protected, reproductive freedom is still being eroded. At the federal level, we’ve seen Trump pardon forced birthers for invading a clinic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr and new Food and Drug Administration head Marty Makary suggest they will be attempting to limit access to medication abortion and funding for family planning clinics seized. At the state level, conservatives continue to roll out new tactics to attack abortion – including multiple states introducing bills to treat it as homicide.
Our friends at the Americans of Conscience Checklist have put together a special issue focused entirely on ways we can help defend reproductive freedom, with dozens of different actions we can take from donating to exposing fake clinics to volunteering to escort patients. Let’s check it out here and pick a few things we can do!
KEEPING AN EYE ON…
Target Fast boycott in effect through TOMORROW, Latino Freeze boycotts on resegregation supporters continuing
50501 Movement’s next day of action Saturday to mark 250th anniversary of start of Revolutionary War
Resistance Rangers rallies at national parks for Earth Day April 22nd
Sign up for updates on ballot curing to stop the steal in North Carolina
Hi all - my apologies for the broken links in the #CommunitiesNotCages action - they have now been updated. Thank you to Betsy R for flagging!
Diedrich Bonhoeffer was a Nazi resistance leader in Germany in the 1930’s and 1940’s. He wrote extensively about the subject of Human Stupidity. Wikipedia and YouTube are good sources to start with. He was a philosopher, a leader, a Lutheran minister and was killed by Adolf Hitler 4 months before he “courageously” killed himself when the country and Europe was destroyed!