Immigration advocates thrive under Trump
Donations and volunteers fueled by president’s stance
President Trump’s broad efforts to curb immigration have produced a windfall for immigrant advocacy groups: more donations, more volunteers and more efforts to work in unison.
The clearest evidence occurs Monday, when the largest immigration advocacy organization in the country, the National Council of La Raza, will change its name to “Unidos US,” or “United U.S.” President Janet Murguía said the change was in the works before Trump came into office, but fits the new strategy of collective resistance.
“It’s is a call to action for all Latinos, but it also signals a message for others to join us,” said Murguía, who will announce the change during a speech in Phoenix.
Within a week of Trump’s election, immigration groups found a surge in support. The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights said it received more than 400 calls from people offering to volunteer. Executive Direc- tor Lawrence Benito said the group had to hire a volunteer coordinator just to handle all the requests.
After Trump was sworn in as president, the demand for legal services skyrocketed, from undocumented immigrants looking for an attorney to represent them because of a spike in deportations to broader lawsuits challenging Trump’s temporary travel ban targeting some majority-Muslim nations and other policies aimed at reducing immigration.
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles hired an attorney and four others to represent people in immigration court. The Florida Immigrant Coalition hired its first staff attorney to respond to the deluge of pleas for help.
“We had to because there were too many calls coming in, too many people saying, ‘I don’t know where my husband is’ or ‘I don’t know where my wife is,’ ” said Francesca Menes, policy director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition.
Benito said his Illinois coalition usually receives about $10,000 in donations each year. Since Trump’s election, it has taken in $100,000.
The ACLU, part of the legal team that successfully blocked two versions of Trump’s travel ban and is now preparing for a Supreme Court battle, has re- ceived more than $80 million in online donations since the election. Normally it receives about $4 million a year.
“I have been at the ACLU litigating immigration cases for 25 years, and this is the busiest I have ever been because of the sheer number of issues,” said attorney Lee Gelernt.
State and local governments have also stepped in. California lawmakers dedicated $15 million last month to defend undocumented immigrants facing deportation. New York spent $10 million to create the Liberty Defense Project. And local governments from Seattle to Baltimore to Washington, D.C., have created smaller funds.
Private groups are also emerging. Florida real estate billionaire Mike Fernandez, an immigrant from Cuba, donated $1 million to kick-start fundraising for a new legal defense fund called Impac.
“I can’t point to an easier time to organize in recent history,” said Apolonio Morales, political director of the Los Angeles immigration coalition.
The additional resources have helped, but immigration groups say it’s not enough to keep up with state and local politicians who are now trying to adopt immigration policies similar to Trump’s. Menes said state legislators in Florida were “emboldened” by Trump’s immigration stance and pushed nearly a dozen bills aimed at curbing immigration and refugee arrivals this legislative session. That forced Menes, who had only focused on undocumented immigrants before, to learn about the refugee process and work with their advocates to challenge those bills.
That strategy has played out across the country. Morales, like other immigration advocates, has teamed up with other minority groups to fight back against such policies. Morales said she’s now working with refugee resettlement groups, Black Lives Matter protesters, LGBT advocates and others to put on a collective front.
“There’s a lot of commonality right now and a lot of folks are looking over their fence to see what’s around them and see how they can help out,” Morales said.