Cost of Cruelty: Funding Mass Deportations Means Defunding Critical Resources for All Families

28 JANUARY 2025

In pursuit of his cruel anti-immigrant agenda, Donald Trump is siphoning critical resources from children, parents, and families.

Washington, D.C. – In order to ramp up his mass deportation agenda, President Trump is defunding critical programs that serve American families and vulnerable communities. This week, the Department of Justice suspended vital legal aid programs, stripping hundreds of thousands—including children—of access to basic legal guidance. Refugee resettlement funding has been frozen, leaving families, including 1,660 Afghan refugees, without housing or support. Federal aid for sanctuary cities is being threatened which could harm public safety and essential services in disaster-stricken cities like Los Angeles. Meanwhile the reinstatement of the global gag rule cuts life-saving health funding, endangering women and girls worldwide. Trump’s cruel agenda doesn’t just harm immigrants—it comes at a devastating cost to our shared values, safety, and communities.

See what experts and advocates are saying in response:

Kerri Talbot, Co-Executive Director of the Immigration Hub:
“Trump’s mass deportation agenda is a stark reminder of the incredible cost of his cruelty—not just to immigrants, but to all families. His administration is draining vital resources from legal aid, refugee support, and community programs, leaving countless families in need while eroding the values that define us as a nation. This agenda isn’t just about immigrants—it’s about taking every last resource to fuel a campaign of division and fear, with devastating consequences for all of us.”

Shaina Aber, Acacia Center for Justice:
“The suspension of these longstanding programs could leave hundreds of thousands of vulnerable immigrants—including children and families—without access to basic legal information and representation. This decision undermines due process and puts lives at risk, disproportionately harming those already facing tremendous hardship.”

Rick Santos, Church World Service:
“Today, millions of vulnerable people who our nation has pledged to stand beside have been left in danger, with no indication of if or when they will be able to access life-saving assistance again. This abrupt action is an abdication of our values of compassion and an abandonment of our nation’s proud history of being the global leader in humanitarian assistance.”

Erol Kekic, Church World Service:
“This administration is turning its back, not only on our proud history, but on many of the families that they now call allies—including Afghans and Ukrainians we have promised to stand behind—and who are vital members of our communities.”

Azadeh Erfani, National Immigrant Justice Center:
“It is unconscionable to defund those services at a time where the administration is conducting mass raids and further swelling an immigration court backlog nearing 4 million people. These services bring much-needed clarity, due process guardrails, and efficiency to both the courts and immigrant communities.”

Laura St. John, Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project:
“If this Stop Work order is not reversed, hundreds of thousands of immigrants will be forced to represent themselves in legal proceedings with no information or understanding of the legal process they are going through. Trying to simultaneously revoke even the most basic access to legal information and support for people in immigration detention is cruel and inhumane.”

Eskinder Negash, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI):
“Punitive measures like this are counterproductive, unjust, and antithetical to the values we hold as a nation. We should remain committed to advocating for policies that prioritize compassion and the shared prosperity of our communities.”

Melanie Nezer, Women’s Refugee Commission:
“Let us be clear: this policy will not protect lives—it will endanger them. The result is more suffering from the consequences of conflict-related sexual violence, more unintended pregnancies, more unsafe abortions, and more maternal death that would otherwise be entirely preventable.”

Andrew Nietor, American Immigration Lawyers Association:
“These policies belie the administration’s rhetoric about prioritizing public safety and targeting people with serious criminal history, and instead demonstrate that they are targeting the most vulnerable people while also eroding our most basic principles of due process and fairness.”

Becky Pringle, National Education Association (NEA):
“Creating chaos is not leadership. The unprecedented, illegal, and reckless decision by the Trump administration to freeze federal funding will hurt students, communities, and public schools—especially students in lower-income communities who benefit most from federal funding. Students will lose access to learning opportunities if Head Start programs are shuttered. Parents will be cut off from childcare services they depend on so they can go to work and provide for their families. Students will go hungry if school meals are taken away. And the dream of higher education will be further out of reach as institutional aid for programs is affected.”

Sue Hendrickson, Human Rights First (HRF):
“Even if this week’s abrupt, blanket freezes in U.S. funding are eventually lifted, they will cause significant and potentially permanent damage to the people and organizations who benefit from U.S. support—and to the U.S. interests that their work protects. U.S. humanitarian aid has both saved lives and played a pivotal role in enabling other countries to continue to host and welcome refugees.”

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The Immigration Hub is a national organization dedicated to advancing fair and just immigration policies through strategic leadership, innovative communications strategies, legislative advocacy and collaborative partnerships.

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