Federal lawmakers are seeking answers from the U.S. Department of Education amid efforts to shutter the agency and reassign “special needs” programs elsewhere.

In a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, 23 Democratic senators are warning that dismantling the agency will “cause immense harm” to students with disabilities.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month calling for the Education Department to be closed and he subsequently announced that “special needs” programs would be moved to the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Congress has promised to families that students with disabilities will have a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment and has specifically charged the Department of Education with making that promise real in the lives of students with disabilities,” reads the letter organized by Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del. “Without an act of Congress giving authority to HHS, this administration’s attempts to shift (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) responsibility to HHS will merely prevent the law from being enforced at all.”

The senators note that the Education Department has specialized expertise in working to ensure that children with disabilities have access to education. Moving this responsibility to an already overburdened health agency would do nothing more than turn back the clock to a time when disabilities were viewed as medical conditions and institutionalization was the norm, they said.

“We are alarmed by the potential consequences your proposed reassignment will have on the larger framework of education for students with disabilities,” the letter states. “We cannot risk regression to an outdated and dehumanizing perspective on disability, which prevented millions of children from accessing the inclusive public education they deserve.”

The senators are calling on the Education Department to address questions about cuts to grants and staffing that may impact students with disabilities and how such decisions are being made. In addition, the lawmakers are asking McMahon what her plan is to ensure that all statutory obligations to students with disabilities are met, whether she’s committed to timely investigations of all disability based discrimination complaints and what evidence she has that moving programs to other agencies will lead to better outcomes for students with disabilities.

Despite Trump’s moves last month, the future of the Education Department and special education oversight remains murky. The agency was established by Congress and federal lawmakers would need to act in order to close the agency.

Meanwhile, IDEA specifically indicates that there be an Office of Special Education Programs within the Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative to administer programs and activities related to the education of children with disabilities.

“No action has been taken to move federally mandated programs out of the Department of Education at this time,” an Education Department spokesperson told Disability Scoop this week while declining to answer questions about the senators’ letter.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a post on X last month that his department “is fully prepared to take on the responsibility of supporting individuals with special needs.” However, agency officials have declined to provide any specifics and did not respond to a request for comment about the status of their plans.