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"No one is forcing Donald Trump to fire the people who make sure students with disabilities can get a good education—he just wants to," said Sen. Patty Murray.
The Trump administration has launched what advocates, parents, and Democratic members of Congress are calling an unlawful and immoral attack on programs that provide education services to millions of children with disabilities across the United States.
Earlier this month, the administration announced mass firings at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), terminations that would hollow out the agency tasked with administering and overseeing programs that support students with disabilities—part of President Donald Trump's effort to abolish the Education Department without congressional approval.
"This reckless and illegal action is another step toward the administration's goal of dismantling the Department of Education," Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote Tuesday. "With this latest action, the Trump Administration is effectively shuttering [the Office of Special Education Programs], which distributed $15 billion in federal grants to schools in 2025."
"These grants," Romig noted, "pay for special education teachers and aides, speech and occupational therapists, assistive technology, screening and early intervention for infants and toddlers, and other critical services and supports that millions of families rely upon."
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said it is "appalling" that the Trump administration is exploiting the ongoing government shutdown to escalate its destruction of the Education Department.
"No one is forcing Donald Trump to fire the people who make sure students with disabilities can get a good education—he just wants to," said Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
While a federal judge paused the OSERS firings with a temporary restraining order last week, reports and public comments from Trump officials indicate that the administration's assault on programs that aid students with disabilities is just beginning.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the administration is considering placing the Individuals with Disabilities Education (IDEA) Act program under the purview of the Health and Human Services Department, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
More than 15% of students in the US receive special education services. IDEA also provides support to hundreds of thousands of infants and toddlers each year.
Sasha Pudelski, director of advocacy for AASA, the School Superintendents Association, told the Post that "moving special education out of the Department of Education demonstrates a disregard for the educational needs of students with disabilities."
"America's special education students are embedded at every level, in every program that the department oversees," Pudelski added. "It's a step backward for education and for our country."
The National Education Association (NEA), the country's largest teachers union, published an article on Tuesday featuring comments from parents alarmed by the administration's targeting of programs that their kids rely on.
"I'm a proud parent of a neurodivergent student, and I'm heartbroken,” Kim Pinckney, the mother of a child with autism, ADHD, and speech disorders, told NEA Today, the union's news publication. "I am one of those parents with the audacity to love my child and to believe he deserves a free and appropriate education. I am one of millions of parents who have the audacity to believe our children are worthy and that they have their own unique genius that deserves to be unearthed."
Experts say it could take more than a decade to clear the Gaza Strip of Israeli bombs that did not detonate upon impact.
Three more Palestinian children were injured Monday in the Gaza Strip by what was likely Israel Defense Forces unexploded ordnance, a danger that United Nations experts say could take more than a decade to defuse.
Gaza Civil Defense said in a statement that the three children were "injured with varying degrees of wounds due to the explosion of a suspicious object from the remnants of the Israeli occupation near Al-Shifa Hospital"—which was repeatedly bombed, besieged, and invaded by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops.
The children were reportedly playing with the object when it exploded. Children are particularly vulnerable to death and injury from certain types of unexploded ordnance (UXO), which can appear similar to toys. This is especially true of cluster munitions, which the IDF denies using in Gaza.
However, the IDF's history of using such weapons—which are banned under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, to which Israel is not signatory—and reports by human rights groups and others suggest the denials could possibly, like so many other Israeli claims, be lies.
In past wars, IDF troops have dropped toys and other civilian objects booby-trapped with explosives that killed and maimed children and others. Gaza Civil Defense reported earlier this month that IDF troops have left such toys behind during their current withdrawal from Gaza.
According to the Gaza Government Media Office, Israeli forces dropped around 200,000 tons of explosives on Gaza during what dozens of nations, United Nations experts, genocide scholars, jurists, human rights groups, and others say was a genocidal war. Warfare experts have said the IDF assault on Gaza—which killed or wounded more than 247,000 Palestinians including at least 64,000 children—was, in the words of one US historian, "one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history."
Of those 200,000 tons of explosives, experts at the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) and elsewhere say that up to 10% failed to explode upon impact. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported in May that the IDF was aware of 3,000 unexploded bombs in Gaza, and that older bombs used by Israel had a dud rate of up to 20%.
The Gaza Ministry of Health, UNMAS, and the Gaza Protection Cluster—a group of humanitarian organizations including the United Nations Children's Fund, and Save the Children—have reported that at least scores of Palestinians have been killed or wounded by IDF UXO in Gaza since October 2023, including numerous children.
UNMAS officials have also warned that in addition to UXO, hundreds of thousands of tons of asbestos exposed by IDF bombardment—which has destroyed or damaged 90% of all homes in Gaza—pose a serious and potentially deadly health risk.
Monday's incident at Al-Shifa Hospital came as 20 Israeli hostages held by Hamas since the October 7, 2023 attack and nearly 2,000 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel were released in an exchange that took place three days after a tenuous ceasefire went into effect.
"Trump and congressional Republicans have driven America headfirst into a government shutdown," said one campaigner. "It is poor women and children who will feel the impacts first and worst."
A federal food program serving vulnerable women and children could run out of money next week due to the Republican government shutdown, a prospect that on Thursday spurred calls for Congress to pass a bipartisan funding bill that protects nutritional assistance for needy Americans.
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides free staples including fresh produce, milk, and formula vouchers for nearly 7 million pregnant and breastfeeding parents and children under the age of 5. The program currently benefits more than 1 in 4 young US children.
“We will have babies being born to low-income women who will not have any breastfeeding support, and they will have no way to get infant formula if they’re not breastfeeding,” Nicole Flateboe, executive director of Nutrition First, Washington state’s WIC association, recently told the Washington State Standard, calling the specter of defunding a "disaster."
The Trump shutdown is threatening to force kids to go hungry. We need, at the very least, a bipartisan spending bill that protects access to food and clean water.
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— Food & Water Watch (@foodandwater.bsky.social) October 9, 2025 at 7:58 AM
In Puerto Rico, 76% of children under age 5 rely upon WIC. In California, that figure is 38%, followed by 35% in New York and 34% in Delaware and North Carolina.
"WIC is a lifeline that helps new parents keep their babies fed. But thanks to Republicans' government shutdown, WIC funds could run out in a matter of weeks," Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) said Thursday on social media. "Republicans must reopen the government NOW and stop playing with people's lives."
Food & Water Watch warned Thursday that over 5 million US children stand to lose food assistance, with many likely to go hungry, if the government shutdown is not resolved.
“Trump and congressional Republicans have driven America headfirst into a government shutdown," Food & Water Watch managing director of policy and litigation Mitch Jones said in a statement Thursday. "It is poor women and children who will feel the impacts first and worst."
Democrats in Congress have introduced a short-term appropriations bill that would fully fund WIC, a proposal that stands in stark contrast with Republican legislation that would maintain current funding levels for the program. The GOP proposal is the equivalent of a $600 million cut, due to inflation and price pressures, according to Food & Water Watch.
Making matters worse, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) signed by President Donald Trump in July stripped Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits from more than 2 million people. The legislation contains the deepest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in history while slashing billions from other essential social programs to fund massive tax breaks for billionaires and corporations.
The OBBBA ends health coverage and food assistance for millions of people at a time when more than 47 million Americans—including 1 in 5 US children—are living in food insecure households.
The Trump administration's staffing and funding cuts at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers SNAP, have also hamstrung the government's ability to provide assistance to those in need.
“It’s a big mess,” Flateboe said. “We don’t have a lot of trust that the USDA is going to handle this real seamlessly.”
While Trump said this week that he would use tariff revenues to temporarily fund WIC, it is unclear how he could do so absent an act of Congress.
"Congressional Republicans need to put food back on the table for struggling families by passing a bipartisan spending bill that protects food access," Jones said.
Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) said on social media: "Families shouldn’t pay the price for GOP dysfunction. We must protect WIC and the people who rely on it."