100 DAY STATE OF PLAY & RESOURCES FOR PHILANTHROPY
INTRODUCTION
In January of this year, GCIR released our 2025 Public Policy agenda, a set of public policy principles and priorities that reflect GCIR’s vision of an inclusive and just society that fosters the protection, well-being, and inclusion of everyone in our multiracial democracy, no matter where they were born.
Just 100 days into the current administration, our country has experienced a dramatic assault on the rights and well-being of immigrants and U.S.-born Americans alike, underscoring the importance of well-resourced movements for justice. Aligned with the four pillars GCIR’s policy agenda, the following state of play offers insights into key threats, opportunities, and resources to help funders meet the challenges of the moment.
What we’re seeing today is an unprecedented power grab that shakes the foundation of what it means to live in the United States. This administration has made clear that it is not only willing to trample on free speech and silence dissent but will also target and retaliate against voices of opposition. Its brazen attempts to consolidate power, side-step oversight, and dismiss due process have caused the U.S. to turn its back on its founding principles and its stated values of freedom and democracy for all.
Immigrants and refugees may be among the most visible targets of this moment, with institutions being weaponized to rob people of their rights and dignity, but it won’t stop there. The current administration’s appetite for sowing chaos and overstepping its authority should be cause for alarm, and it demands intervention. These attacks should not be taken as isolated acts impacting only immigrants and other marginalized communities – these attacks threaten us all.
Given the highly volatile policy environment and number of movement groups fighting for immigrant rights and pushing back against encroaching authoritarianism, this summary should be taken to be a non-exhaustive, point in-time accounting. We encourage funders to read on to learn about the many efforts to advance justice in this moment, support these or related groups, and reach out to GCIR with any questions.
*Note: The content below is a summary version of our report that does not contain state and local insights and opportunities to invest in movement organizations. Click here to download the full report.
POLICY PILLAR I: THE PROTECTION AND SAFETY OF IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES
SUMMARY
Since taking office on Jan. 20, 2025, the Trump administration has been aggressively – and frequently unconstitutionally — moving to restrict the ability of individuals and families to legally enter or remain in the United States. These restrictions have been accompanied by increased surveillance of immigrant communities and heightened militarization.
LEGAL MIGRATION PATHWAYS
Refugee Resettlement
The refugee resettlement program was suspended indefinitely on the first day of the current administration, resulting in the cancellation of flights for individuals and families that had already gone through extensive vetting and were approved to travel to the United States. Concurrently, funding for resettlement services for those already in the U.S. was frozen. In addition, a transit ban, reminiscent of the discriminatory Muslim and African Ban levied during the first Trump administration, is widely expected to be announced in the near future.
CBP One App
The CBP One app, the primary remaining way to apply for asylum at the southern border, was shut down on the first day of the current administration, resulting in the cancellation of all pending appointments, regardless of how long individuals had waited to secure them. By April, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had notified tens of thousands of migrants who had previously been admitted through the app and were currently living in the U.S. that their legal status would be revoked, and they would be targeted for removal. While it was shutting down the border, the administration moved to restart the harmful Migrant Protection Protocols policy (colloquially known as “Remain in Mexico”), which subjected asylum seekers to dangerous conditions in Mexico, including violence and kidnapping.
Humanitarian Parole & Temporary Protected Status
Humanitarian parole for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV) along with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections for Afghans, Cameroonians, Salvadorans, Venezuelans, and those from a number of other countries, was terminated by the administration, affecting hundreds of thousands of individuals who have built their lives and communities here, while putting them at risk of losing their work authorizations and being removed from the U.S.
DETENTION AND DEPORTATION
Additional aggressive enforcement measures that serve to criminalize and delegitimize immigrants include:
- establishment of deportation quotas, at a rate of two to five times greater than daily totals under the Biden administration.
- passage of the Laken Riley Act, which mandates detention of immigrants for simply being accused of non-violent offenses, such as shoplifting.
- establishment of a new “immigrant registry” process and new documentation requirements.
- expansion of a policy known as expedited removal, which allows for the elimination of due process and rapid removal from the country of individuals based on when they entered the United States and in what geography they were detained. The expansion was from 100 miles proximity to the border and entry within the previous two weeks, to an individual present anywhere in the United States who has entered within the previous two years.
- disappearance of people who have been living in the U.S. to the infamous Guantanamo military installation.
- expansion of enforcement to any alleged undocumented immigrant (including those who were not swept up in the criminal system), including in places of worship, schools, and hospitals.
- resumption of the practice of incarcerating families, including young children.
- expansion and opening of private, for-profit, detention facilities in states like New Jersey and Texas (opposed by the Detention Watch Network (DWN) and others).
FUNDING FREEZES
Legal Services
While shutting down these legal pathways and revoking peoples’ lawful statuses, the administration has also sought to freeze federal funds for legal services, including the Legal Orientation Program (LOP), Immigration Court Helpdesk (ICH), Legal Orientation Program for Custodians (LOPC), Family Group Legal Orientation Program (FGLOP), as well as the Unaccompanied Children Program (UCP), which would force children as young as 6 – including those lacking English proficiency — to navigate the immigration system and represent themselves in court without a lawyer.
Sanctuary Cities
In addition to these targeted funding freezes, Congress is threatening massive financial penalties for “sanctuary cities,” with H.R. 32 proposing to grant the president wholesale powers to withhold federal funding to hundreds of “non-cooperative” jurisdictions. Funding withheld would not only harm immigrants but would harm Americans across the board who rely on school lunch programs, public transportation, homebound senior meal programs, Head Start, food stamps, and many other programs. Even without the authority of this legislation, the president recently moved ahead in issuing an executive order targeting sanctuary cities and their federal funding.
ENFORCEMENT & DETENTION AT THE STATE AND LOCAL LEVEL
287(g) Agreements
Beyond this steady assault at the federal level on the right of individuals to lawfully enter and/or remain in the United States, the state and local levels of government are also serving as crucial battlegrounds for immigration enforcement and detention. Since the current administration came into office this year, there has been an explosive expansion in 287(g) agreements that essentially deputize local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration law, even as advocates have fought back and sought to carve out protections.
- By February, every single county in the state of Florida had entered into 287(g) agreements with the federal government.
- That same month, numerous states ranging from Virginia to Oklahoma to Minnesota all adopted new 287(g) agreements at the local or state level or both.
- This steady expansion continued in March with the state of Georgia compelling all of its state troopers to participate in 287(g).
- In Kentucky, such agreements were entered into for the first time.
- New York saw its second-ever county sign an agreement.
Notably, many of these agreements are for an expanded version of 287(g) referred to as the “task force model,” which allows for immigration enforcement to be conducted by local police out in the community as opposed to the site-based “jail enforcement model,” which is restricted to jail settings. The model was discontinued in 2012 due to Department of Justice findings of widespread racial profiling and discrimination but was restarted by the Trump administration via an executive order in January. All told, there are currently over 450 active 287(g) agreements across the country – more than double the number prior to the administration retaking office this year. The highest prevalence of agreements is in Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia, though they are in force across 38 states.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
POLICY PILLAR Ii: THE HEALTH AND WELL-BEING OF IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES
SUMMARY
So far this year, health and labor issues have been a mixed bag for community members and advocates. On the one hand, multiple Trump administration actions are weakening labor protections and threaten to curb access to, and participation in, health programs. On the other hand, numerous efforts are underway at the state and local levels to expand rights and protections. Since states and localities have wide latitude on health and labor policy, funders can have an outsized impact on immigrant well-being by supporting organizing, narrative change, and policy work at these levels of government.
WORKER RIGHTS & BENEFITS
Worksite Raids
Threats to worker rights emanating from the federal government include the ramping up of mass worksite raids targeting farm workers, day laborers, and other workers in locales ranging from Philadelphia to South Texas to Newark – the last of these being a raid in which ICE also detained U.S. citizens. These raids are generating intense fear in communities, with many immigrants avoiding work or going deeper into the underground economy where they are even more vulnerable to workplace abuses including wage theft, abuse, harassment, and intimidation.
Workplace Protections
At the same time, the current administration has launched a wholesale rollback of civil and worker right protections under the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; rescinded National Labor Relations Board guidance that previously sought to protect immigrants seeking to unionize and/or report workplace violations; and accessed sensitive, confidential information about workers through the Department of Labor.
IRS – ICE Data Sharing Agreement
Combined with advocate fears over the possible termination of deferred action for exploited workers – or the misuse of deferred action for labor enforcement (DALE) applicant info for ICE targeting – the workforce landscape for immigrants, particularly those in precarious occupations and statuses, has become decidedly more hostile. Misuse of worker data has already emerged as a dangerous reality with the recent announcement of an unprecedented Internal Revenue Service - ICE data sharing agreement that will result in the IRS turning over confidential information about immigrants who had proactively obtained an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) in order to pay their taxes.
Loss of Work Authorization
The administration’s push to end legal status for individuals previously covered by Humanitarian Parole (HP) or Temporary Protected Status (TPS) means hundreds of thousands of individuals will also lose their work authorization. Both HP and TPS are special emergency protections granted to individuals for urgent humanitarian reasons or for a significant public benefit. Also at risk are immigrants who had lawfully obtained a social security number but now are being added to the Social Security Administration’s “death master file,” so as to terminate their ability to use their SSN to work, use bank accounts, access federal benefits, and otherwise engage in civil society. This move is part of the administration’s cynical effort to make life as difficult as possible for immigrants in order to compel “self-deportation.”
HEALTH CARE ACCESS
Health Insurance
On the health front, the most immediate threats include the loss of eligibility for healthcare insurance among individuals who may lose legal status as a result of the administration’s push to terminate Humanitarian Parole and Temporary Protected Status. Similarly, there is an active legal challenge to the Biden-era expansion of the Affordable Care Act marketplace to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) holders.
Even if the expansion survives legal scrutiny, it would be rendered moot should the Supreme Court rule against the DACA program at large, which would imperil the security and well-being of hundreds of thousands of individuals and their families and communities – an outcome United We Dream (UWD), FWD.US and other advocates are fighting against. More broadly, millions of Americans, including immigrants, are at risk of the loss of healthcare services if the administration and Congress move forward with slashing Medicaid benefits to pay for tax cuts that disproportionately benefit more wealthy households and businesses.
Public Charge
Another looming risk includes anticipated revisions to the public charge rule that would target Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and housing assistance, as was done during the first Trump administration. These changes led to a widely documented and harmful chilling effect in which millions of immigrant households (including U.S. citizen children) disenrolled from programs to which they were legally entitled due to fear and confusion over the implications of the rule.
The Protecting Immigrant Families (PIF) coalition played a significant role in educating communities about public charge rules and ensuring the Trump era rule changes were later reversed by the Biden administration. Leading members of that effort, including NILC and the Center on Law and Social Policy (CLASP) are also active drivers of the campaign to eliminate the five-year bar, a federal restriction that denies certain lawfully present immigrants the ability to access federal health and nutrition benefits for the first five years of their residence.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
policy pillar iii: the full representation and participation of immigrants and refugees in society
SUMMARY
With the promotion of anti-immigrant narratives a cornerstone of the current administration’s rhetoric, it is unsurprising that a wide range of exclusionary policies are being considered at all levels of government. Still, advocate groups are seeking out opportunities to promote immigrant inclusion, participation, and representation in American society.
IMMIGRANT INCLUSION & REPRESENTATION
Birthright Citizenship
At the federal level, efforts to erase immigrants from the political landscape include both an executive order and a congressional proposal to eliminate birthright citizenship – the former of which was immediately found unconstitutional in multiple courts due to its violation of the 14th Amendment, with at least nine lawsuits currently challenging these attacks.
Efforts to add a citizenship question to the United States Census have also resurfaced, with Congress holding hearings on the subject and Trump revoking a Biden-era executive order that affirmed the census count should include all people living in each state.
Census
Adding a citizenship question to the decennial census would depress response rates from non-citizens fearful of disclosing their status to an administration that has already displayed a willingness to misuse sensitive data for immigration enforcement, as seen in the case of the IRS-ICE agreement. Ultimately all residents, citizen or not, are harmed by undercounts, as congressional representation, federal funding, and system planning (transit, hospitals, schools, etc.) all depend on accurate total population counts. Going a step further, lawmakers have introduced legislation from a Project 2025 proposal to not just rely on a decreased census count to reduce representation, but to unconstitutionally mandate that congressional apportionment explicitly exclude non-citizens.
Public School Access & Community Safety
Plyler v. Doe
Another Project 2025 proposal making its way through state legislatures aims to block undocumented children from accessing public school education. Though settled law for over four decades, state lawmakers are seeking to provoke lawsuits in order to have a case make its way to the Supreme Court, where the Plyler v. Doe decision might be undone. In their 1982 ruling, the court found that denying education to children based on their immigration status would be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
While the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and other advocates successfully defeated a series of bills this session, the threat remains, including in other states such as Oklahoma and Texas which still have active legislative proposals that would restrict school access. The Education for All campaign, led by national groups like the National Education Association (NEA), NILC, Oklahoma Appleseed, CLASP, and others have been actively mobilizing on this topic.
Sensitive Locations
Of grave concern is the administration’s recission of previous ICE guidance on protected locations (colloquially referred to as “sensitive locations”), that limited enforcement actions in schools, places of worship, and hospitals. The move has generated intense fear in immigrant households, with many schools reporting a drop in attendance as frightened parents keep their children home. Numerous churches have filed suit against the policy, and many school districts are moving to reassure immigrant families and update their internal practices on how school personnel should respond to attempted ICE enforcement actions. In a recent high-profile incident, these practices paid off as two Los Angeles schools successfully denied Homeland Security agents access to five children in the first through sixth grade.
This effort to restrict education for immigrant youth comes against the backdrop of the active dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education, including cuts to the Office for Civil Rights which is charged with investigating discrimination complaints, including for differential treatment based on race, national origin, and immigration status, as well as to guarantee language appropriate supports and household engagement.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
POLICY PILLAR IV: EMBRACING AND STRENGTHENING OUR MULTIRACIAL DEMOCRACY
SUMMARY
The current administration’s aggressive agenda is not targeting immigrants or immigration policy alone. Instead, it is part of a larger and deeply distressing effort to consolidate autocratic rule, and it affects all Americans. From executive overreach to suppression of free speech to activation of wartime powers during a time of peace, the current administration – and its enablers – threaten American democracy, with immigrant communities serving as among the first and most visible targets.
Freedom of Speech
Freedom of expression is so foundational to the idea of America that it was made the very first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Yet, under the current administration, the right to free speech is under direct attack. Multiple federal agencies have taken unprecedented steps to target international students as a warning to those who have spoken out against the genocide of Palestinians. Agents with the Department of Homeland Security detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia student and lawful permanent resident, without an arrest warrant in March. Soon after, Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk was grabbed off the street by masked law enforcement, while Palestinian student activist Mohsen Mahdawi was arrested at his naturalization interview. The U.S. State Department even threatened to revoke over 1,300 student visas over those students’ political views. And while legal challenges have contested those efforts, the message is clear: free speech rights in America may now be conditioned on whether the current administration agrees with that speech.
Under the guise of combating antisemitism on college campuses, the Department of Education has attempted to coerce universities like Columbia and Harvard to silence their students under the threat of withholding billions of dollars in federal funding and/or revoking their 501(c)3 status. Community-based nonprofits have also been put in the crosshairs, with both the administration and Congress threatening to revoke their charitable status.
Attacks on Civil Society
One bill that passed in the House of Representatives, HR 9495, would grant the treasury secretary unilateral authority to designate nonprofits as terror-supporting entities and revoke their tax-exempt status. Other legislation would strip organizations of their nonprofit status for providing support to undocumented immigrants. Earlier this year, the president also issued an executive order that included instructions to the attorney general to consider investigating foundations with over $500 million in assets over their diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.
The administration’s hostility toward the media has further entrenched threats to free speech. In a stunning move, the White House barred the Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One as retribution for the news organization’s refusal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico in its news coverage. President Trump also filed a $20 billion lawsuit against CBS over the network’s “60 Minutes” program (his largest political donor and now head of DOGE, Elon Musk, went as far as to call for “long prison sentences” for producers who work on the show). The Trump administration has since eliminated funding for government supported independent media, including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, and others.
Beyond the media, the current administration has also sought to hobble perceived opponents in the legal profession by targeting law firms with sanctions that include restricting their access to federal contracts and buildings. The stated rationale for the sanctions included targeting firms that represented former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as lawyers associated with investigations or legal challenges involving the current administration.
Attempts to stifle dissent are not only being directed at the civil sector, but are also happening internally, with early administrative actions that include illegally purging independent inspectors general across the government and dismissing federal prosecutors involved in investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Chilling affronts to free speech have not been limited to the federal level, with numerous anti democratic proposals emanating from state legislatures. A particularly egregious example is SB 6002, signed into law in Tennessee in February, which, among other things, makes it a class E felony for elected officials in the state to vote for “sanctuary policies.” Penalties include removal from office, thousands of dollars in fines, and up to six years of prison time. The ACLU of Tennessee says it intends to challenge the law. In Minnesota, a sycophantic bill has been introduced that seeks to define “Trump derangement syndrome” as a mental illness that consists of “acute paranoia” in reaction to Trump, with symptoms including “Trump-induced general hysteria…. expressed by verbal expressions of intense hostility…”
Separation of Powers
The current administration is also testing the separation of powers, another sacrosanct aspect of American governance. In addition to purging inspectors general without the required 30-day notice to Congress, the executive branch has unilaterally frozen and revoked congressionally appropriated funds (including legal services for immigrant children, adults, and families), violating the authority of the legislative branch of government.
The administration has begun openly flouting judicial authority as well. Vice President JD Vance suggested that the judiciary could not legitimately curb the president’s power, while Musk, who is unelected and unconfirmed, has called for the impeachment of judges who had acted to restrain DOGE’s unprecedented interventions in the federal government. The current administration later moved beyond rhetoric into full-fledged disregard of the judiciary by ignoring a federal judge’s injunction to halt or reverse the removal of hundreds of Venezuelans. The administration later defied a Supreme Court decision that required the federal government to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was illegally deported along with more than 200 other people without due process. The administration is paying the country of El Salvador up to $15 million to house them in the notorious and dangerous Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
Executive Overreach & Consolidation of Power
By invoking the Alien Enemies Act to enable mass deportations, the executive branch is consolidating power under dubious means, with ramifications for all Americans. The act is intended to be used only during wartime and the authority has not been invoked since the shameful internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. While the administration used these powers to disappear hundreds before the Supreme Court forced them to stop, it is not the only example of the administration’s misuse of power.
Indeed, over the last several months the president has actively considered invoking the Insurrection Act, having previously instructed the Defense and Homeland secretaries to advise him whether to do so after studying the conditions at the southern border. Invoking the latter act would allow the president to deploy the military within the United States for civil law enforcement, subjecting not just immigrants, but all citizens to the oversight of armed federal troops.
It is important to note that not only did the current administration fail to invoke the Insurrection Act to put down an actual insurrection at the nation’s Capital on Jan. 6, 2021, but the president later issued nearly 1,600 full pardons or commutations to those convicted of their participation in the attack, including those found guilty of assaulting police, using a deadly weapon, or destroying government property.
As the president continues to dismantle core pillars of civil society and founding principles of checks and balances within government, the risk to all Americans grows exponentially. Immigrant communities and communities of color more broadly might be considered the proverbial “canary in the coal mine.” Federal immigration agents have not only detained U.S. citizens, but the president has stated publicly that he is open to deporting American citizens to foreign prisons. These stunning acts ought to ring alarm bells for philanthropic institutions that exist to advance a better world.
From disingenuous attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion, to the attempted erasure of transgender people and bans on gender-affirming care, to the rollback of Biden-era executive orders that sought to preserve women’s autonomy over their bodies, to increasing criminalization of homelessness, to shutting down the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database, to rescinding accessibility initiatives, to seeking to erect new obstacles to the ballot box, it is clear that immigrants are not alone in seeing their rights abridged and safety threatened. In the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”
additional resources
- Authoritarian Playbook (Report)
- Anti-Authoritarian Playbook (Substack)
- Disappeared Persons Tracker
- In Defense of Movements
- Joint Statement on Threats to Civil Society & Charitable Sector (signed by GCIR)
- Project 2025 Tracking Tool
- Ash Center for Democratic Governance & Innovation
- Resisting Authoritarianism and Attacks on Immigrant Communities