The future of a decades-old federal program that helps thousands of migrant students get to college is in literal double jeopardy following delayed federal inaction and President Donald Trump’s signature bill that would eliminate it entirely.
The College Assistance Migrant Program, which supports first-year college students from migrant and seasonal farmworker families, is facing a dual threat: weekslong delays in grant awards from the Department of Education have left campuses with the program in limbo, while the One Big Beautiful Bill seeks to eliminate the program entirely.
“Programs like CAMP help uplift us as a Latino community,” said Erandy Montiel, a former CAMP student at Eastern Washington University.
Established in 1972, CAMP was created to encourage students from migrant and seasonal farmworker backgrounds to pursue higher education. The program provides a range of support, including scholarships, tutoring, counseling and mentoring for 2,400 students annually across the nation.
The uncertainty surrounding CAMP comes amid immigration crackdowns tied to the Trump administration’s hardline stance – including in agricultural sectors.
Earlier this month, a Department of Homeland Security official directed agents to pause all worksite enforcement operations targeting agriculture – including aquaculture and meatpacking, as well as restaurants and operating hotels.
But that changed on Monday, when ICE officials told agency leaders in a call that immigration raids at agricultural businesses, hotels and restaurants must continue, despite mounting pressure from industry groups to halt them.
“The president has been incredibly clear,” said Tricia McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary, in a statement to the Guardian on Tuesday. “There will be no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine ICE’s efforts.”
Delayed funds
A few months ago, Congress appropriated funding for the College Assistance Migrant Program as part of the fiscal year 2025 budget, continuing its share of the approximately $52.1 million allocated for migrant education programs. Still, the U.S. Department of Education has yet to release grant award notifications – even as fiscal year 2025 begins in less than two weeks.
“We haven’t received any new information regarding when funding will be released from the Department of Education for our grant,” said Michael Heim, director of Migrant Education at Washington State University.
CAMP grants are awarded on a five-year cycle, but institutions must secure continuation funding each year to operate, he said. Typically, they’re notified by late May or early June, making this year’s delay unusually burdensome for administrators.
Rocío Rangel, program director for Eastern Washington University’s CAMP program, said they’ve been told they may not receive any funding until September.
“That’s a 90-day gap of not knowing what will happen to being able to serve our students the way that we typically would,” Rangel said.
WSU and EWU are among eight colleges in Washington offering the CAMP program, along with Wenatchee Valley College, Yakima Valley College, and Columbia Basin College. WSU receives $475,000 annually, while EWU receives $425,000 through federal grants.
Heim emphasized that because many of these students are first-generation college-goers whose parents work in Washington’s agricultural industry – often in rural towns like Othello or near Yakima and Wenatchee – early preparation is crucial to provide students and their families a sense of stability and support.
“As they delay funding to serve agricultural workers in Washington, it creates a burden on us, administratively and also financially,” Heim said.
Levi Vega, program director for CAMP at Wenatchee Valley College, said the delay in the grant award notifications for fiscal year 2025 will create disruption in services to students in grant programs. This can impact recruitment, engagement and, ultimately, retention of students in higher education.
“Delays in funding also will impact staff employment in grant programs, given that federal funds for grants provide employment for staff who oversee the grant,” Vega said.
Echoing their concerns, Rangel said summer is when they plan orientation for CAMP participants, help them explore internships and offer support for those taking summer courses.
She added that about a third of their students said being accepted to Eastern and into the CAMP program was the first time they seriously considered attending college – making summer preparation essential to understanding and meeting their needs.
“When these things are all put on hold, it causes tension, and it causes a lack of consistency,” Rangel said.
Heim said WSU currently has 43 students set to participate in CAMP this fall, each receiving a $1,000 scholarship for the year. Rangel said 40 students have already confirmed their participation at Eastern, each getting $500 per quarter, while Vega said 45 students are enrolled in the program at Wenatchee Valley College, with scholarships varying depending on the student – all of whom could be affected by the funding delays.
However, Rangel noted that Eastern is in a somewhat more secure position thanks to a private grant of $425,000, which matches their annual federal allocation. If federal funds are delayed until fall, the university plans to use that private grant to keep the program running.
“I know that that’s an incredibly unique position to be in,” Rangel said. “I don’t know that my fellow CAMP programs across the country have that same opportunity.”
Still, the uncertainty surrounding the delay in grant awards isn’t the only challenge the program faces.
‘The people I relied on’
Erandy Montiel, 33, doesn’t remember a time when her father wasn’t getting up at 3 a.m. to endure a long day in the fields of Brewster, Washington.
As the second-youngest of six, her older siblings would take care of her while their parents picked cherries, pears and apples. Cherries, she recalled, often meant her father was gone from 2 a.m. until later in the afternoon.
Once her siblings graduated from high school, they followed their father into the fields – but Montiel wanted something different.
She said she was able to find that through CAMP during a campus tour at Eastern Washington University in 2010.
“I was like, ‘OK, so I’m not the only one who is fighting the odds of all this,’ ” said Montiel, who now holds a master’s degree in social work from Whitworth University.
More than a decade later, Montiel is alarmed the program that helped her find her footing in college faces an uncertain future.
“It’s just horrible,” Montiel said. “I know that there’s different programs and clubs that you can join at any college, but for me personally, it was that whole cultural shock of things and not knowing where to go that makes you go like, ‘I don’t even know if I want to be here.’ ”
K’mwee Hser shares a similar story.
Born in a refugee camp in Thailand, Hser left with her mother, grandfather and uncles at just 11 months old. Her family moved frequently, but eventually settled in Pasco when she was 10, where her mother and relatives worked in the orchards.
“I remember them coming back home from hot, hot days, just extremely exhausted,” Hser said.
Like Montiel, Hser found community and support through programs like CAMP.
She said it wasn’t until her senior year of high school that she discovered the program, and applied immediately.
“Seeing threats to the program is scary because grant awards are awards to help low-income students like me,” said Hser, who’s part of Eastern’s CAMP program. “Students aim for higher education not because that’s the only way to have a successful future, but because they’ve grown up and seen how their families are without education.”
Rangel said this cut of funding for more than 50 CAMP programs across the nation also includes other programs that help first-generation students succeed in college, such as TRIO – a program designed to support people from disadvantaged backgrounds in their pursuit of higher education.
“Personally, CAMP was the place that I went to where staff dedicated to help me get through college and made it possible to be as successful as I was,” Rangel said.
Rangel shared that she also grew up with parents who worked in the fields of Salinas, California, and was the first in her family to pursue higher education after being introduced to the CAMP program in high school.
“As a first-generation student, I knew I was already having a hard time trying to figure out all of these things that I have to do, like being admitted to college, and CAMP was there from the very start, you know, waiving my application fees, walking me through the orientation processes and the enrollment and registration,” Rangel said.
“They were the people that I relied on to show me the ropes. They were the ones that kind of filled that gap,” Rangel continued.
Although she can’t speak on how big the impact would look across CAMP programs with the federal cuts, she said the success rate of the program speaks for itself and its importance.
She said Eastern’s CAMP program currently has a 92% continuation rate.
“It’s a model that shows great success in this population of students that have the highest dropout rate in the nation, and a lot of these students are here in spite of this,” Rangel said.
“It’s hard to see, it’s hard to know what’s going to happen and it’ll be hard to see how this unfolds. This is something we’re watching closely,” she said.