On July 10, 2025, the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) released guidance requiring that all grantees under DOL’s largest workforce and training grant program must verify valid work authorization for any participants in their programs. This decision will essentially bar any undocumented immigrants from participation in federally-funded programs for development, training, and job placement for senior workers, young workers, migrant and seasonal farmworkers, dislocated workers (such as those impacted by mass layoffs, natural disasters, or other major economic disruptions), and more.
In 1996, Congress passed The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), also known as the Clinton administration’s signature federal welfare reform bill. Some agencies adopted interpretations or developed guidance on implementing PRWORA that made it clear that not every federally funded program was considered a “federal public benefit.” This meant that those programs could be accessed by all without the burden of having to verify their immigration status.
On July 10, 2025, the Department of Education announced that they would rescind guidance on PRWORA that has been the policy of the department since 1997, removing exemptions to reclassify certain postsecondary and technical education programs as “federal public benefits.”
On July 14, 2025, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced that they would reinterpret some federal and federally-funded programs as “federal public benefits” in order to bar undocumented immigrants from accessing the programs. HHS’s July 14 announcement would remove HHS’s exemptions from PRWORA, originally adopted in 1998. This would require any entity receiving federal funds from HHS to bar undocumented immigrants from accessing Head Start early childhood education programs, federally-funded free community health clinics, mental health and substance abuse programs, and more.
Impact: Undocumented immigrants are already barred from participating in most federal benefits programs. The most immediate impact of these actions will be to create more restrictions, red tape and administrative burdens, and exclusion for all recipients of federal grants running a wide range of public health, education, community and workforce development, and education programs, and for all participants in those programs, even those who will remain eligible. Further, grantees may need to take further steps to identify and remove undocumented people, including children, from participating in programs ranging from pre-kindergarten to certain community college programs to health care. This means undocumented immigrants will be barred across the board from benefiting from programs that their own tax dollars have helped pay for.