$4.7M in expenses

Law and policy: during this period, the national immigration law center's (NILC) law and policy team challenged unjust laws jeopardizing the rights of immigrants and refugees, and advanced systemic, progressive policy solutions focused on ensuring that everyone in the u.s., regardless of immigration status, can live with dignity and thrive in the country they call home. For example, the team worked to ensure successful implementation of the historic "deferred action" guidance announced by the department of homeland security designed to ensure that immigrant workers do not face retaliation from employers when asserting their rights on the job, which included conducting trainings about the policy for advocates and attorneys in states across the country, responding to hundreds of individual inquiries, publishing numerous educational resources, and collaborating with workers' rights, labor, and law firm partners to support workers with applications. Defending the deferred action for childhood arrivals (daca) program continued to be one of the team's top priorities throughout the period, which included supporting daca recipients in preparation for court hearings in response to cases brought by texas and other states challenging the program's legality, and working with allies to advocate for a permanent policy solution for immigrant youth. The team played a leading role in the national effort to build support for protecting the country's asylum system in response to concerted efforts to gut asylum protections. And the team fought back against extreme state policies, co-filing lawsuits to challenge a texas bill that would create enhanced punishments and mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment for human smuggling and related offenses, and another to block an unconstitutional oklahoma law establishing a state-run immigration system that bypasses and conflicts with federal law.

$3.5M in expenses

Protecting immigrant families: protecting immigrant families (pif), a separately operated coalition fiscally sponsored by the national immigration law center, is focused on protecting and defending access to health care, nutrition programs, public services, and economic supports for immigrants and their families at the local, state, and federal levels. Pif's key accomplishments during this period include: 1) supporting pif state affiliates in conducting 40 in-person events that reached nearly 3,900 people, and 143 virtual events with a reach of 8,400+ people; 2) creating a "getting your kids the benefits they need" resource checklist and webinar with 330+ registrants in coordination with coalition partners; 3) executing a federal advocacy day in may 2024, which included over 26 visits with policymakers to educate them on health and public benefits issues affecting immigrants; and 4) coordinating a medicaid unwinding task force to identify potential problems for immigrant families during the process to end the continuous coverage requirement originally linked to the covid public health emergency; this task force conducted a survey about the "unwinding" that elicited responses from people in 27 states, published a report, and hosted a webinar on the report's findings revealing the disproportionately negative impact of the medicaid eligibility policy change on immigrant families.

$3.1M in expenses

Other programs include activities related to narrative change, the immigrant movement visioning project, and strategic communications. Narrative change works to shift hearts and minds through art, storytelling, and culture to advance a just and equitable society. The immigrant movement visioning project engages diverse immigrant justice leaders to plan and articulate a long-term vision for the immigrant movement. The strategic communications team advances strategic priorities with compelling messages that reach their intended audiences.

$1.9M in expenses

Partnerships and advocacy: one of NILC's core program strategies focuses on contributing to a stronger immigrant justice movement by leading and supporting collaborations and partnerships with other immigrants' rights organizations. As part of these partnerships and advocacy efforts during the reporting period, NILC launched three campaigns focused on key issues affecting the lives of low-income immigrants and their families. This included a health for all campaign designed to expand health care coverage to millions of immigrants by advancing creative policy solutions that respond to the needs and policy environments of different states, and building on state-level victories to fuel momentum for a national health for all movement. NILC also launched an education for all campaign dedicated to protecting the right of every child, regardless of immigration status, to access a free k-12 public education. The partnerships and advocacy team also launched a save daca campaign designed to advance a myriad of legislative, administrative, and private sector solutions at the federal, state, and local levels to demand permanent policy solutions for immigrant youth who need the permanency and stability of a pathway to citizenship.