Melania Trump made a rare Capitol Hill appearance on Wednesday to press Congress to broaden access to services for young people in foster care, arguing the effort should move forward as young people leave the system. Speaking to lawmakers at a roundtable, the first lady called the legislative push a “moral imperative” and said barriers that extend beyond the classroom can affect education and academic outcomes.
During the visit, Trump met in the afternoon with members of the House Ways and Means Committee, which introduced new legislation focused on foster youth and former foster youth. According to the committee, the proposals are intended to update the Chafee foster care program, which provides support as young people ages 14 to 21 leave foster care.
Trump said youngsters in foster care face barriers to housing, transportation and education, along with other challenges beyond school that can affect how well they perform academically. “We can close this gap,” she said. “New legislation for the foster care community is a moral imperative.”
The roundtable included people who said the current system leaves gaps even when foster youth meet expectations. Jaydan Martinez, a freshman at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, said he received just over $2,000 in support per semester but that the help “disappeared in the blink of an eye,” and he said he supports raising the cap on the financial assistance.
Another attendee, Jocelyn Fetting, said she aged out of the system at 21 and that thousands in foster care do everything right but still struggle because “the systems to support them have not kept pace with their needs.” She said she lost her parents at age 12 and, while in college, worked three jobs even with scholarships to meet housing, food and other needs.
Fetting, now 22, described her work as a substitute teacher for grades pre-K through 8 and as a peer navigator for young adults in foster care. She said the proposed changes matter because “we are expecting young people to achieve self-sufficiency without providing support to do so,” linking the legislation’s aim to the transition from care to independent living.
The bills introduced by House committee members would increase access to services including housing, education and workforce training programs, as foster youth prepare for adulthood and independence. The measures have not yet moved far in Congress, with the proposal described as newly introduced and still facing a long path toward passage.
The Chafee program provides support to foster youth and former foster youth ages 14 to 21 as they leave the system. The committee said the bipartisan legislation would be the most significant update since the program was created in 1999.
Supporters pointed to oversight findings that suggest federal dollars have not always translated into help for people in need. The Government Accountability Office published a report in January 2025 describing how states were returning millions of dollars in unused Chafee program funds to the federal government, despite unmet needs of foster youth.
Trump’s focus on foster care comes as she has also pursued other child-focused policy efforts in her role. Her visit followed a lobbying effort last year to get Congress to send legislation to the president to protect women and children from online sexual exploitation, and it arrived about a week after her surprise on-camera statement at the White House in which she denied ties to Jeffrey Epstein and knowledge of his crimes, while urging Congress to hold a hearing for Epstein’s victims MSI previously reported on her survivor-centered call for a hearing.
The outreach also ties into the administration’s broader “Fostering the Future” initiative. Last November, President Trump created the “Fostering the Future” program by executive order, directing federal entities, nonprofits, educational institutions and the private sector to work together to improve career and educational opportunities for children raised in foster care. The first lady separately spearheads a broader “Fostering the Future” initiative that is part of the “Be Best” child-focused campaign she launched during his first presidential term, offering scholarships to current and former foster youth and describing a presence on more than 20 university campuses across the United States.