Immigrant advocates warned that Project 2025 aims to, if Trump wins the presidency of the United States, exercise a heavy hand against immigrants, privatize MediCare, denying the right to abortion and attacking the advances of the LGBTQ+ community.
During the video conference: The dangers of Project 2025: Who is at risk?, organized by Ethnic Media Services, political leaders and advocates explained they warned that it would erode the rule of law, weaken the separation of powers, blur the lines between church and state and would threaten civil liberties.
It was in 2022 when the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank launched Project 2025.
Extreme concern
Manju P. Kulkarni, CEO of AAPI Equity Alliance, He said Project 2025 is such an extreme and unpopular document that most Americans have said they are very concerned.
“This document uses any opportunity to demonize immigrant communities using phrases like ‘illegals have infiltrated and are committing crimes.’”
He said that all of this serves to fan the flames of racism, and they just saw it in Springfield, Ohio where false accusations were made about Asian immigrants, saying that they stole pets to eat them.
“Project 2025 plans a mass deportation like never before. Would give broad authority to immigration agents to target, arrest, detain and deport immigrantsyes.”
He said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents could claim the right to enter homes, schools, businesses and even churches to search for immigrants without a warrant from a judge, and arrest people they suspect are undocumented, simply because of the color of their skin.
“This impacts millions of mixed-status families, families with undocumented parents, and children who are U.S. citizens.”
He added that he would eliminate family-based immigration, which has been a key tool for thousands of families to be reunited in the United States.
He noted that there is a plan to implement Project 2025 as soon as possible.
“I understand that former President Trump has tried to distance himself, but at the same time, he has voted for some parts and said he will separate mothers from their children.”
Little information among Latinos
Sulma Arias, executive director of the People’s Action Institute and People’s Action, He said that among the Latino community, there is little education and conversation about Project 2025.
“It’s a collection of ideas that have been part of a long-standing agenda, coming from the coalition of corporations behind the Heritage Foundation, that are looking at how to benefit from it being implemented.”
He said communities do not deserve to go through mass raids and live in fear.
But the concern regarding Project 2025, he warned, is not only because of the migration issue but because it will have an impact in other areas since it will eliminate disaster loans for small businesses.
“He is going to privatize the National Weather Service, and there is an effort to privatize public services with companies that profit from rates.”
He specified that what Project 2025 wants is to give more power to corporations that speculate on prices in some communities.
“If implemented, it will increase basic health care costs which can mean life or death for communities of color, especially Latinos.”
He added that they want to privatize Medicare so that it is run by corporations like United Health, which means they would decide who gets care.
“This is especially important for Latinas, since one in four Latinas between the ages of 18 and 64 are covered by Medicare; and just imagine it being privatized by a corporation like United Health.”
Reproductive rights at risk
Yvonne Gutiérrez, strategy director of Reproductive Freedom for Allsaid that Project 2025 will directly affect reproductive freedom, including abortion, medications and emergency care, as well as care for contraception and in vitro fertilization.
“At the same time, it uses the extreme ideology that life begins at conception, and spreads misinformation that promotes harmful and outdated stereotypes in which women’s freedoms are repressed.”
He stated that if allowed to go into effect, it will devastate reproductive freedom, and will ban abortion in all 50 states with or without the support of Congress and the courts.
“The Food and Drug Administration would have approval to launch criminal investigations and prosecute those who provide abortion drugs, and it will undermine access.”
The impact on the LGBTQ+ community
Tony Hoang, CEO of Equality Californiasaid that four years of the Trump-Vance administration would be a devastating blow to LGBTQ+ civil rights organizations, and those that ensure health access, voter rights and environmental protections.
“Nearly 140 members of the Trump Administration have helped create Project 2025; These are people who have made a career out of attacking the LGBTQ+ community, and the Heritage Foundation specifically has fought against our equity as they launch multimillion-dollar campaigns attacking marriage equity, conversion therapies, military service, LGBTQ+ curricula, and the inclusion of trans young women in the Boy Scouts.”
He said that the first thing they want to attack is transgender people.
“They equate being transgender with pornography, and declare that it should be banned.”