Photo | Eric Casey
Congresswoman Lori Trahan (D-MA)
4 hours ago
McGovern to Trump: ‘Keep your goddamn hands off of Job Corps’
Photo | Eric Casey
Harrison Ingles, a graduate of the Shriver Job Corps Center in Devens, speaks at a press conference on Wednesday in front of the center.
Standing across the street from the Shriver Job Corps Center in Devens on Wednesday, Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) had a straightforward message to President Donald Trump regarding his administration’s movement towards shuttering the 61-year-old Job Corps program.
“Keep your goddamn hands off of Job Corps,” McGovern said. “Job Corps is one of the best programs that our country has ever created for expanding economic opportunities and enriching our communities.”
McGovern, appearing alongside Congresswoman Lori Trahan (D-MA) and graduates of the Shriver center, spoke at a press conference outside the facility one day after Judge Andrew Carter of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York extended a temporary restraining order blocking the closures for another week.
Carter questioned whether the decision to rapidly close nearly 100 Job Corps Centers across the country, including those in Devens and Grafton, was different from ending the program entirely, something that can only be done by Congress, according to Bloomberg Law.
Carter expressed skepticism the move to rapidly close the centers, described as a temporary pause by the U.S. Department of Labor, was unrelated to the Trump Administration’s decision to make a fiscal 2026 discretionary budget request, which called for the program to be eliminated.
Trahan shared that skepticism, while noting the move already had a significant impact on Job Corp Centers like the one in Devens.
“100 people just left the program,” Trahan said before the press conference. “These people who were housed here were literally on the path to getting a credential and going to work. They went home, and even with the temporary injunction, many of them didn't come back. Because when you're faced with that kind of uncertainty, how are you going to upend your life like that twice?”
Harrison Ingles, a 2008 graduate at the Devens site who said he began attending the center after losing both his parents at age 18, said his experiences there were life changing.
“I lost my parents, and quite honestly, I had nowhere to go,” Ingles said. “Job Corps for me was a roof over my head that wasn't in a car, where I had slept previously. This program opened doors for me. From 2008 until now, there are still staff that extended far beyond my graduation that I still speak with.”
Ingles said he started in the business administration trade before moving on to the center’s advanced college training program, with the center providing transportation to attend classes at Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner. He later transferred to Worcester State University, where he received an English degree and an educator license. He’s now a high school English teacher.
The Trump Administration cited the program’s graduation rate, listed at 32% in the 2025 Job Corps Transparency Report issued by Department of Labor in April, as one reason for the decision to eliminate the program’s funding, while also citing incidents of violence and high costs.
“Job Corps was created to help young adults build a pathway to a better life through education, training, and community,” Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a May 29 press release announcing the closures. “However, a startling number of serious incident reports and our in-depth fiscal analysis reveal the program is no longer achieving the intended outcomes that students deserve.”
McGovern pointed out on Wednesday Chavez-DeRemer had been a supporter of the program prior to joining the Trump Administration, signing a 2024 letter while a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, which urged for funding of the program to be continued.
McGovern also noted that Trump made comments in the Oval Office on May 28 saying the country should be investing in trade schools over colleges, the same day WBJ reported the Department of Labor was moving to shutter Job Corps centers in Central Massachusetts and beyond.
Photo | Eric Casey
The Shriver Job Corps Center in Devens has been operating since 1996. The center had a traditional graduation rate of 89.6% in 2023, the highest of any center in the country.
Trahan said the entire Massachusetts congressional delegation sent Chavez-DeRemer a letter urging her to reconsider. Another letter to Chavez-DeRemer pushing back against the closure has been signed by 199 members of Congress.
“The decision to write this letter was a no-brainer, because of the success stories we know of and have here today,” she said. “These graduates span five different fields, and are living, breathing proof that this program works.”
Urging Republican colleagues who back Job Corps to be more vocal, McGovern acknowledged the volume of pressing issues facing the country, but rallied supporters of the program to continue their fight against the closures.
Photo | Eric Casey
Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA)
“It's not hard to see what's going on here with this White House,” McGovern said. “Any program in this country that doesn't enrich billionaires or glorify our manchild of a president is something to be destroyed. The reason why it's important to have rallies like this and to single out Job Corps is because everyday there are about 20,000 things that we hear about [the Trump Administration] that are offensive. I think that's a tactic to overwhelm all of you, so you feel hopeless and do nothing. We have to resist that feeling, and we have to fight back.”
Eric Casey is the managing editor at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the manufacturing and real estate industries.
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