WASHINGTON —  U.S. Senate Democrats on Tuesday rebuked the Department of Education’s efforts to transfer its special education programs and civil rights enforcement to other agencies. 

Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii convened a panel of advocates and former department officials in Republican and Democratic administrations to blast the department’s moves, which represent a key step in President Donald Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Education Department. 

Education announced in June that the Department of Health and Human Services would administer programs under Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, or OSERS, while civil rights enforcement under its Office for Civil Rights would be transferred to the Justice Department.

Democrats have been highly critical of the moves since they were announced. 

Families of students with disabilities “deserve an educational system that is going to provide their kids with the education services that (are) required under IDEA,” Hirono said Tuesday. 

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, guarantees a free public education for students with disabilities. OSERS is responsible for managing and supporting IDEA. The umbrella unit includes the Office of the Assistant Secretary, Office of Special Education Programs and the Rehabilitation Services Administration. 

Meanwhile, Education’s Office for Civil Rights is tasked with investigating discrimination complaints from students and families.

Lacking expertise

Democratic critics of the interagency agreements say the Education Department is best equipped to deal with special education programs and civil rights enforcement.

“In my view, neither of these other agencies or departments have the expertise to really be able to handle their piece of this,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen said.  

The Maryland Democrat noted that he’d “much rather be in a position where we’re trying to make good things happen than trying to prevent harm to the Department of Education and the effort to make sure that we address the civil rights of students and make sure that people have the special education opportunity that the law requires, but here we are.” 

The Education Department announced 10 earlier interagency agreements with HHS, Labor, Interior, State and Treasury in an effort to shift several of its major functions to those agencies. 

‘One consistent answer’

Valerie C. Williams, who served as director of the Office of Special Education Programs, or OSEP, under the Biden administration, said the deteriorating quality of special education may not be immediately noticed, but would have significant consequences for the students.

“Here’s what worries me most, as someone who ran this office: The damage does not announce itself,” she said. “The erosion of enforcement and support does not show up the week it happens. It shows up months later, as a state that quietly stops getting monitored, a complaint that just sits, or a phone call that never gets answered.”

Laurie VanderPloeg, associate executive director for professional affairs at the Council for Exceptional Children, called on members of Congress across the aisle to “stand up for infants, toddlers, children and youth with disabilities by preserving the Department of Education and protecting special education programs from being transferred to another agency.” 

VanderPloeg served as director of OSEP during the first Trump administration. 

“We must resist the urge to make the fate of children with disabilities political, and urgently remain focused on supporting outcomes for all children,” she said. 

Seth Galanter, a senior fellow at the Edley Center on Law and Democracy at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law said “there’s a reason that Congress kept OCR and OSERS in the same building.” 

Galanter, who served as the principal deputy assistant secretary for civil rights during the Obama and Biden administrations, said “school districts need one consistent answer on disability rights, not two agencies pulling in different directions.” 

Administration defends transfer

Tuesday’s forum came just days after a Senate education panel advanced a bipartisan bill to rein in Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Education Department and would block interagency agreements that transfer programs regarding special education, elementary and secondary education, postsecondary education and Native American education. 

That legislation notably would not apply to the administration’s efforts to shift civil rights enforcement under OCR to the Justice Department. 

Savannah Newhouse, a spokesperson for the Education Department, doubled down on the administration’s efforts, in a statement shared with States Newsroom on Tuesday. 

Newhouse said Hirono and her Democratic colleagues “are either completely ignorant to the collapse of American education, or they are actively rooting for the bureaucracy over our children,” adding that “their desperate fearmongering, claiming students will lose guaranteed federal support, is flatly false.” 

Newhouse added that under Education’s partnership with Justice, “families retain the exact same direct line to staff for civil rights complaints.” 

Regarding Education’s agreement with HHS surrounding special education programs, Newhouse said “OSERS staff remain fully committed to protecting the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) with bolstered support from HHS — an agency that already successfully manages grants and programs that serve individuals with disabilities.” 

WASHINGTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not planning an aggressive campaign at voting sites during the upcoming midterm elections, the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday in response to a States Newsroom inquiry about a letter from U.S. Senate Democrats voicing concerns about armed federal agents at polling places.

ICE, an agency within DHS that has sustained intense criticism since the start of the second Trump administration for its aggressive and sometimes deadly tactics, has no plans to target polling sites in November, a DHS official told States Newsroom in an email. 

The official left open the possibility, though, that the agency’s plans could change based on available intelligence.

“ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations,” the DHS official said. “ICE conducts intelligence-driven targeted enforcement, and if an active public safety threat endangered a polling location, they may be arrested as a result of that targeted enforcement action.”

The email came from a general DHS media account and did not name the official. The statement did not specify anything about DHS agencies other than ICE.

While DHS made similar statements earlier this year, this one responded to a request for comment about a letter this week from a dozen U.S. Senate Democrats to three Cabinet members demanding to know more about the administration’s possible plans to send federal law enforcement officers to polling places across the country. 

The group, led by Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, sent a letter Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in which the lawmakers asked whether armed federal agents would be deployed at election sites, which they said would be prohibited under federal law. 

“Congress has enacted longstanding criminal prohibitions against sending federal personnel to polling places and using federal power to interfere with elections,” they wrote. “Americans should never have to wonder whether the federal government intends to police the ballot box with armed agents.” 

Democrats have voiced increasing worries that President Donald Trump is seeking to control elements of election administration, which is a state responsibility under the U.S. Constitution. 

The issue is at the center of lawsuits brought by Democratic campaign and nonpartisan voting-rights groups challenging an executive order restricting mail-in voting. And U.S. House Democrats say the administration is withholding disaster relief funds as leverage to force states to change their election laws.

“The letter reflects my and my Senate colleagues’ deep concerns that Donald Trump appears to be planning to steal the upcoming election, which Republicans cannot win on the merits,” Markey said in a Thursday statement to States Newsroom. “We know that no unlawful, illegal, and unconstitutional act is beyond him and we must be ready for it.”

Joining Markey on the Tuesday letter were Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York, Gary Peters of Michigan, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Andy Kim of New Jersey, Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Maria Cantwell of Washington.

Growing concern 

The senators’ concerns, they said, arise partly from findings revealed earlier this month that came out of an investigation launched in 2025 by the Democratic National Committee. 

Last October, the committee sought records regarding the possible deployment of federal law enforcement officers to polling stations, ballot-drop sites and election offices. The departments of Justice, Homeland Security and Defense initially did not produce any documents, and during ensuing litigation, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement represented it had found “no responsive records,” according to the July 28 letter. 

But after the DNC challenged the search results, ICE admitted to finding “more than 11,000 potentially responsive pages,” while U.S. Customs and Border Protection, another DHS agency, said it located nearly 117,000, lawmakers wrote. 

The Department of Defense declined to comment Thursday on the senators’ letter, telling States Newsroom that it will instead follow its typical protocol of responding directly to the authors themselves. 

The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s focus on elections  

Democrats’ inquiries into the administration’s plans also stem from comments President Donald Trump has made in recent months about election integrity.

When a PBS Newshour correspondent asked Trump in May if he would send ICE agents or National Guard troops to polling sites for the midterms, he said he would “do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections.”  

And earlier this month, during a nationwide primetime address, he again reiterated claims about the country’s voting systems being vulnerable to hacking and disputed his 2020 presidential loss, sowing doubts about the entire election process despite having a lack of evidence to back up his words.  

“President Trump’s statements, coupled with his repeated threats to invoke the Insurrection Act — which authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the United States to suppress rebellion or domestic violence — only heighten concerns,” the senators added in their letter. 

“The Administration now has a choice,” they wrote. “It can continue to fuel the appearance that it is laying the groundwork for an unprecedented federal intrusion into state-run elections, or it can finally provide Congress and the American people with the transparency they deserve.”

The lawmakers requested that Blanche, Mullin and Hegseth provide details about any possible plans to deploy federal troops at election sites in November and identify who may have authorized such deployments, setting a deadline of August 11. 

They also asked that the federal agency leaders produce records “concerning the possible deployment of federal law enforcement personnel or troops to polling places or other election sites.”