When we look back one year from today, what will we say we have done to meet this moment?
One hundred days into the second Trump administration, multiple executive orders carried out through agency actions have frozen federal funding, abruptly halted essential services and programs, changed agency policies without proper process together with massive firing, lay-offs, and fake buy-outs of federal civil servants. These actions have dismantled domestic programs, undone international aid agencies that for decades provided needed assistance to countries devastated by civil unrest, famine and natural disasters, as well as upended the ecosystems that maintain vital checks and balances, protect the rule of law, and ensure the survival of our democracy. The impacts of the administration’s action are no longer just anti-immigrant and anti-migrant; immigrants and migrants are the tips of the spear used by the administration to test the resiliency of our system of rule of law and ultimately the survival of our democracy. With Congress having surrendered its authority to provide the checks and balances envisioned by the founders and codified in our Constitution, the judiciary is the last remaining guardrail to curb the power grab of the executive branch, to protect fundamental rights, to preserve institutions of democracy and to arrest the country’s descent into an authoritarian state.
Instead of feeling paralyzed by the immense human suffering caused by the cruelty of this administration, it helps to understand the interplay of the slew of executive actions that make up three pieces of the puzzle.
First Piece
Interior targeting of all sectors of the immigrant community by ending liminal immigration protection, criminalizing unlawful presence, isolating immigrants and their helpers with false and dehumanizing narratives, and pushing the outer limits of executive authority through improper use of war power and deploying archaic Alien Enemies Act to weaponize immigration enforcement, engaging in abduction and rendition to permeate a climate of fear.
Second Piece
Externalize migration by shutting down all avenues of lawful migration to the United States, suspending refugee resettlement, outsourcing detention and removal to shirk moral responsibility to address global crisis of human displacement and sufferings of vulnerable populations.
Third Piece
Dismantle networks on the ground domestically by defunding refugee services, legal services, and healthcare. Further, threaten educational institutions, law firms, federal judges, news media, and national advocacy groups to cower and defang the network of protectors and helpers, while simultaneously destroying international aid network and institutions as well as invoking irrational tariffs to cause global financial instability, and disrupt world order.
To protect the rule of law, legal services and advocacy groups have filed no less than two hundred lawsuits since January 20, 2025, including the first lawsuits filed on day one of this administration challenging attempts to strip birthright citizenship from children born to parents lacking permanent immigration status defying a 127-year legal precedence. To date, despite court orders directing the administration to restart refugee resettlement, resume funding for legal services for unaccompanied children, facilitate the return of immigrants unlawfully deported, curtail unlawful access to personal identifiable information by unvetted DOGE employees, the administration has yet to follow most of these court orders.
One in seven Americans is an immigrant. They are vital members of our community. As refugee resettlement remains in a standstill, community members have come together to welcome the several hundred Afghan refugees who bought their own plane tickets to resettle in the United States. Grassroots organizers set up a rapid response team to crowd-sourced funds to post bond to secure the release of immigrants swept up in immigration enforcement. Despite the loss of funding and staff, legal services, advocacy groups, and law firms continue to file lawsuits to hold the administration accountable. Despite daily threats to them and their associated organizations, tens of thousands are fighting on the ground to protect individuals whose rights have been trampled on, working to hold the line to lessen human suffering, preserve rights promised under our Constitution.
The storm is already here! The nonprofit community is working in shifting sand that threatens to swallow it. Our collective efforts to hold the line may not last much longer. There is no time to waste. Now is the time for philanthropy to step in boldly and generously to ensure the survival of nonprofit organizations fighting and working on the ground both domestically and across the border. With multiyear general operating support from philanthropy, the nonprofit ecosystem can:
- Rebuild the advocacy and support ecosystem decimated by massive loss of federal funding.
- Redirect the narratives about immigrants and migrants to permeate the national consciousness to reset the collective national conscience.
- Transition the nonprofit ecosystem into the post-federal-funding world.
- Tackle the transnational nature of migration to support the immigrant community that is international by nature.
- Build coalition and safety net to support the immigrant and refugee community.
- Take legal actions to challenge illegality, to hold the administration accountable, and to preserve the rule of law and basic rights.
- Pivot to address pressing issues resulting from unpredictable executive actions.
- Rebuild humanity to make the United States the beacon of hope, again.
References
- 100 harmful actions in 100 days of Trump 2.0, Human Rights Watch, (April 24, 2025), https://www.hrw.org/feature/2025/04/24/100-human-rights-harms-100-days/trump-administrations-assault-rights-united
- “Nobody Cared, Nobody Listened” the US Expulsion of third-Country Nationals to Panama, Human Rights Watch, (April 24, 2025), https://www.hrw.org/report/2025/04/24/nobody-cared-nobody-listened/us-expulsion-third-country-nationals-panama
- The First 100 Days of the Second Trump Administration: Key Immigration-Related Actions and Developments, National Immigration Forum, (April 28, 2025), https://immigrationforum.org/article/the-first-100-days-of-the-second-trump-administration-key-immigration-related-actions-and-developments/
- Latin America and Trump’s Frenzied First 100 Days: Taking Stock, WOLA, (April 30, 2025), https://www.wola.org/analysis/latin-america-and-trumps-frenzied-first-100-days-taking-stock/
- One Month In …, Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative, (March 4, 2025), https://houstonimmigration.org/one-month-in/
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