Angélica Infante-Green, Rhode Island’s commissioner of elementary and secondary education, speaks at a forum on Tuesday, May 6, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Screenshot via YouTube)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats on Tuesday blasted the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, underscoring the impact of the dizzying array of cuts, overhauls and proposed changes to the agency on students, families and educators.

Sen. Patty Murray, who hosted the forum in a U.S. Senate hearing room alongside several Democratic colleagues, said Trump is “essentially bulldozing the Department of Education, regardless of who depends on it, regardless of who is still inside, and regardless of the very loud outcry from parents and educators and students about this.”

The Washington state Democrat brought in education advocates and leaders, who emphasized the importance of the department in delivering on federal resources for public education, investigating civil rights complaints and helping students cheated by predatory institutions.

Trump and his administration have sought to dramatically reshape the federal role in education, including an executive order calling on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to facilitate the closure of her own department, the gutting of more than 1,300 employees at the agency, threats to revoke funds for schools that use diversity, equity and inclusion practices and a crackdown on “woke” higher education.

‘Unnecessary confusion and chaos’

Angélica Infante-Green, Rhode Island’s commissioner of elementary and secondary education, said she and colleagues who lead state education across the country have spent a great deal of time trying to decipher the intent of Trump’s executive orders and the department’s directives and policy changes.

“They seem unclear and cause unnecessary confusion and chaos for all of us,” Infante-Green said. “While the impact of the confusion may be hard to quantify,  what is clear is that students and families and educators are the losers in this new paradigm.”

Denise Forte, CEO of the nonprofit policy and advocacy group EdTrust, said “most urgently, we are alarmed by the mass firing of over half of the department staff.”

“This isn’t reform — it is sabotage,” Forte said, pointing to the layoffs hitting wide swaths of the department, particularly in the Office for Civil Rights, Office of Federal Student Aid and Institute of Education Sciences.

“With the Office for Civil Rights now severely understaffed, civil rights complaints will skyrocket while response capacity plummets,” she said.

Students with disabilities 

The cuts at the agency and Trump’s proposal in March that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services “will be handling special needs” have sparked worries among disability advocates over whether the department can carry out its responsibilities to serve students with disabilities.

Diane Willcutts, director of Education Advocacy, said she’s been getting “panicked phone calls from parents of children with disabilities who are wondering, ‘What does this all mean?’”

Willcutts has worked for over two decades in Connecticut and Massachusetts helping families of children with disabilities navigate the education process.

“I think everyone’s shell-shocked, and we’re looking for direction — how can we be helpful to you in order to protect the U.S. Department of Education?” she said. “I know there’s this assumption that ‘Oh, the states will take care of it.’ That is absolutely not the case, I can tell you in my state that is not what is happening right now, and so, as I said, there’s a level of panic but we’re looking for direction.”

Trump’s budget request

Meanwhile, Trump also released a budget request last week that calls for $12 billion in spending cuts at the department.

Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin said the budget includes “devastating cuts to many critical programs,” and that the proposal “comes at a time when too many students are chronically absent and achieving at levels that will not set them up for success.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Trump administration is “cutting so many things — don’t feel alone, Department of Education.”

“They don’t know what they’re doing about just about anything, and they want to cut everything, but to cut education, which has been sacrosanct in America, is just awful,” the New York Democrat said.

Schumer said Tuesday’s “spotlight hearing” is just one in a series Senate Democrats will be hosting in response to Trump’s cuts to the department.

Trump administration officials said the outrage was misplaced. 

“If Senate Democrats were truly interested in fighting for parents, students, and teachers as they claim, where was their outrage over this year’s dismal math and reading scores? Don’t get it twisted,” Savannah Newhouse, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education, said in a statement shared with States Newsroom.

Senate Democrats “are fighting President Trump’s education agenda for one reason: to protect the bloated bureaucracy that has consistently failed our nation’s students,” Newhouse said.

“By returning education authority to the states, President Trump and Secretary McMahon will help every American child — including those in public schools — to have the best shot at a quality education.” 

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., right, meets in El Salvador on April 17, 2025, with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident who was erroneously deported to El Salvador by ICE agents in March. (Photo courtesy Van Hollen's office)

WASHINGTON — Kilmar Abrego Garcia remains in prison in El Salvador after he was mistakenly deported more than a month ago, and Senate Democrats said Thursday they will file a privileged resolution that would require the State Department to report on human rights conditions in CECOT,  the brutal 40,000-capacity facility where Abrego Garcia was first incarcerated.

The resolution also would force the Trump administration to detail its steps to comply with court orders on the removal of Abrego Garcia and other immigrants from the United States.

The announcement of the resolution came after President Donald Trump, during an ABC News interview that aired Tuesday, acknowledged that if he wanted to, he could secure the return of Abrego Garcia from El Salvador.

However, Trump then refused to do so, alleging Abrego Garcia has gang ties. He pointed to an altered photograph of Abrego Garcia’s knuckles that showed them displaying the characters “MS-13.”

When ABC News journalist Terry Moran pointed out the photo was photoshopped, Trump argued that it wasn’t.

“Why don’t you just say, ‘Yes, he does,’” Trump said to Moran, referring to the MS-13 tattoo. Moran did not reply and moved to another topic.

The Department of Justice has claimed that Abrego Garcia is a leader in the MS-13 gang, but has not provided evidence in court of those connections. Abrego Garcia was granted deportation protections by an immigration judge in 2019 over concerns he would experience violence by gangs if returned to his home country of El Salvador.

The U.S. Supreme Court, an appeals court and a district court all have upheld that Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who the Trump administration admitted was mistakenly deported to a notorious prison, must be returned.

“Donald Trump should stop trampling on constitutional rights of people who reside in America, and the government of El Salvador should stop conspiring with the Trump administration to violate the constitutional rights of those who reside in America, including Abrego Garcia,” Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen said at a press conference on the Senate resolution.

The Supreme Court last month ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia, but stopped short of requiring it and sent the case back to a federal judge to clarify how the return could be “effectuated.”

The case is now in closed proceedings before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland as discovery and depositions from officials interviewed under oath about Abrego Garcia’s case continue. Xinis on Wednesday denied the Trump administration’s request for another extension to provide information on Abrego Garcia.

$6 million payment 

The resolution, backed by Van Hollen, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, would require the State Department to issue a human rights report on El Salvador.

It also specifically asks for a report on the prison known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, where Abrego Garcia was initially sent in March, along with nearly 300 other men deported from the U.S.

The State Department issued a 2023 report on human rights conditions in El Salvador, which noted that there were reports of “systemic abuse in the prison system, including beatings by guards and the use of electric shocks.”

If the resolution manages to pass in the Republican-controlled Senate and House, and the State Department doesn’t issue a human rights report within 30 days, then any foreign assistance to El Salvador would be canceled, Kaine said.

The Trump administration has stated that it’s paying El Salvador $6 million to detain the men at CECOT.

Van Hollen said of that funding, the Trump administration has paid El Salvador about $4 million so far to detain the men and plans to pay as much as $15 million.

Experts have raised concerns that the foreign assistance funds to El Salvador from the State Department violate the Leahy Law, which bars financial support of “units of foreign security forces” — which can include military and law enforcement staff in prisons —  facing credible allegations of gross human rights violations.

Van Hollen meeting in El Salvador

Van Hollen also pushed back on the Trump administration’s insistence that because Abrego Garcia is in El Salvador’s custody, he cannot be returned.

Van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador last month seeking a meeting with Abrego Garcia, said during that trip he spoke with El Salvador Vice President Félix Augusto Antonio Ulloa. Van Hollen said Ulloa told him “the only reason the government of El Salvador is holding (Abrego Garcia) is because the Trump administration is paying (El Salvador) to do so.”

Van Hollen was initially denied a visit with Abrego Garcia. But he was eventually able to secure an in-person meeting under the close supervision of Salvadoran officials.

Abrego Garcia appeared with Van Hollen in civilian clothes — a stark difference from a video released by the Trump administration that showed Abrego Garcia in a prison uniform and being roughly handled by Salvadoran officials.

In response to the in-person meeting, the White House wrote on its official social media account that Abrego Garcia “is NOT coming back.”

Van Hollen said he has not had any update on the condition of Abrego Garcia since the visit to El Salvador.

Message for Bukele

During El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s first-ever visit to the Oval Office in April, he declined to return Abrego Garcia. In that same meeting, Trump asked Bukele if he would take “homegrown” criminals, meaning U.S. citizens.

Kaine said that he had a message for the president of El Salvador if he accepts U.S. citizens for incarceration.

“You might think it’s cute right now to grab attention by a bromance with President Trump,” he said, adding in Spanish that any alliance with Trump will be short-lived, ending with the conclusion of his term in office. “If you think we’ll forget you violating the human rights of American citizens, you’re wrong,” said Kaine.

Van Hollen added that he, along with Kaine and Schumer, plan to introduce a bill to place sanctions against Bukele and “all those who are part of his government conspiring with Donald Trump to deprive residents of the United States of their constitutional rights.”