The Trump administration has proposed cuts to state-based legal services for people with disabilities, as human rights activists say the Justice Department has fired many of the lawyers who worked on disability issues.
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Advocates say the Trump administration is seeking to curtail access to lawyers who defend the rights of Americans with disabilities.
Most lawyers work for either the Justice Department or the disability rights agencies that Congress established in each state decades ago. Many of the Justice Department’s lawyers left in 2025 after being reassigned to other jobs, their advocates say. President Trump’s budget officials also proposed significant cuts to federal aid that supports state-based legal organizations.
People with disabilities have the right to live in their own community if possible. Federal law and court decisions say they can attend school, work and go to restaurants, movie theaters and other public places. If you can find a lawyer, you can file legal challenges if those rights are denied.
Alison Berkoff, a health law professor at George Washington University, said federally funded lawyers are secretly working to bring the U.S. into compliance with promises made in the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws.
“I think a lot of families of people with disabilities, and even a lot of people with disabilities themselves, didn’t know that until they Googled, ‘Where can I get help?'” said Berkoff, who helped lead these efforts under Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
Berkoff said the attorneys’ goals include making sure people with disabilities receive the services they need to live in their own homes rather than in nursing homes or other types of facilities.
“These people will be forced to leave their communities and families at a greater cost to taxpayers if these supports are stripped away,” she said.
State-based disability rights organizations are known as “protection and advocacy” organizations. Most of them are nonprofit organizations.
Congress approved the federally funded program in the 1970s after television journalist Geraldo Rivera exposed abuses at New York facilities for the mentally ill and mentally disabled, sparking a national backlash. President Donald Trump has proposed cutting the program’s federal funding from $148 million to $69 million in fiscal year 2026, according to the National Disability Rights Network, which represents state-based organizations.
The U.S. House and Senate appropriations committees recommended that Congress maintain funding at previous levels. But advocates for the agency worry that even if Congress maintains current support, the administration could try to cut support again in the future.
“It’s definitely going to put people in our communities at risk,” said Marlene Salo, executive director of the national network.
White House officials declined to comment on why the Trump administration proposed the deep cuts.
Isaac Schreier’s family can attest to the value of a state-based legal organization.
Isaac, 7, lives in Ankeny, Iowa. He has a rare disease called osteogenesis imperfecta, also known as brittle bone disease. The condition resulted in around 60 fractures in limbs, spine and skull. It can cause severe pain and may prevent you from walking.
Isaac’s disability is sometimes almost invisible, said his father, Jake Schreier. He walks a lot unless he has recently broken a bone in his leg. “But he gets tired much faster than you or I.”
Isaac’s doctors said he needed a special wheelchair that could be adjusted to different positions depending on the bones that were broken. However, the private insurance company managing his Medicaid coverage refused to pay for the $3,500 wheelchair.
“They needed evidence that it was a permanent, long-term condition,” Jake Schreier said. “We were very frustrated.”
Mr. Schreier appealed the denial but lost. A nurse at the specialty clinic then recommended that she contact Disability Rights Iowa, a federally funded protection and advocacy group that has helped other families in similar predicaments.
The group connected Mr. Schreier with two of his attorneys, who filed a new appeal. The lawyers wrote a detailed letter explaining why Isaac was legally entitled to use his new wheelchair, citing specific Iowa statutes and case law.
The insurance company eventually paid for Isaac’s special wheelchair.
This chair allows Isaac to participate in school and community activities even though he has a broken bone. “Day and night are exactly the same. I can’t imagine a world without that,” the father said.
People like disability rights lawyers may be needed again to fight for Isaac to keep him from being shunned by society, Schreier said. “We’re really trying to keep as many doors open for him as possible.”
The threat to state funding comes as the Trump administration seeks to force more mentally ill and addicted patients into facilities.
David Hutt, deputy executive director for legal services at the National Disability Rights Network, said the organization has legal authority to enter facilities where people with disabilities live to assess conditions and treatment. These facilities include state agencies and private nursing homes.
If President Trump succeeds in his efforts to institutionalize mentally ill people living on the streets, more Americans could end up living in such settings, Hutt said.
At the same time, states face cuts in federal funding for Medicaid, the public health care program for people with low incomes and disabilities. In response, they may be tempted to reduce Medicaid coverage of community care programs, many of which are considered discretionary under federal law, Hutt said. That would “require more institutionalization and actually cost more,” he said.
Disability rights organizations often intervene when states fail to provide the care and services to which disabled people are entitled. So do lawyers in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
For example, the Iowa Disability Rights Group filed a lawsuit in 2023 alleging the state failed to provide adequate mental health resources to children in its Medicaid program. The state agreed to a settlement that advocates say could bring about “fundamental changes” to the system.
In 2021, the Department of Justice warned Iowa officials that a lack of support for community services meant too many people with intellectual disabilities had to live in institutions. State officials vowed to do more.
Jennifer Mattis, a top Justice Department official under the Biden administration, said many of the Justice Department’s most experienced disability rights lawyers have been bought out or reassigned to other fields since President Trump returned to power.
“We’re really understaffed right now,” said Mathis, now deputy director of the Bazelon Center, which advocates for the rights of the mentally ill.
Mattis said the overall civil rights division’s headcount has fallen to about 300 people, less than half of what it was during the Biden administration.
Harmeet Dhillon, the new director of the Civil Rights Division, told conservative commentator Glenn Beck in April that more than 100 lawyers had left the agency because they did not support President Trump’s priorities. “Our job here is to enforce federal civil rights laws, not woke ideology,” she told Beck.
In a statement to KFF Health News, Dillon said the department continues to be “a vocal and active advocate for Americans with disabilities.”
Dillon noted that the department recently sued Uber over complaints that the ride-hailing service was refusing customers with service dogs and wheelchairs. Reached agreements with Arkansas and North Carolina to improve treatment of incarcerated people with disabilities. A major bus company is also being investigated for allegedly failing to provide adequate facilities for people with disabilities.
The ministry declined to comment on its record regarding the number of lawyers working on disability rights issues. However, it is recruiting “civil rights warriors,” including lawyers, to join its civil rights division. Iowa parent Jake Schreier hopes the problem will be resolved nationally.
“I really can’t believe this is a partisan thing,” he said.
