Who’s Funding Policy Advocacy for Immigration Reform and Immigrant Rights?

This feature article was first published by Inside Philanthropy on June 24, 2024.

With immigration continually in the news, both as a hot-button political cause and as a long-term civic and demographic issue, we’ve been writing about the philanthropic funders who support immigration-related causes, including immigrant students and legal services for immigrants and refugees. Here, we’ll be taking a look at some of the key philanthropies backing a set of causes that set the groundwork for so much else in this space: policy advocacy for immigration reform and immigrant rights.

Comprehensive immigration reform has been on the docket (so to speak) for years, but efforts continue to stall in Congress. In fact, the last time significant reform was successful was in 1986 under the Reagan administration. While some piecemeal immigration policies have been included in larger congressional spending packages, presidents have realized that the bulk of the immigration-related policy changes they’ll ever get to make will have to take the form of executive orders. These are, for good and for ill, much more easily undone than legislation — both by the courts and by subsequent presidents.

Most recently, President Joe Biden used his executive order power to strictly limit asylum seekers — a move that was met with criticism from advocates and prompted a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union. Following the outcry, Biden issued a further executive order allowing the undocumented spouses and children of U.S. citizens to remain the U.S. while getting their papers in order.

While the federal government controls immigration law and policy, states can also have a big impact. In Texas, a new law that’s currently being blocked by the courts would allow local law enforcement officials to arrest, jail and send to deportation authorities anyone suspected of crossing the Texas-Mexico border between ports of entry. State laws can also have positive impacts, such as allowing immigrants to obtain drivers’ licenses or giving them access to healthcare coverage.

As is the case in other arenas where the powers and resources of the public sector dwarf those of private grantmakers (i.e., most arenas), influencing policy can be an effective lever to pull for philanthropists interested in advancing immigrant rights. And policy advocacy for immigrant rights can involve much more than just pushing for immigration reform. Immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees require policies to protect their rights, from civil rights to workers’ rights, voting rights and more. As is the case when it comes to a lot of philanthropy, these issues are often siloed, though there are some funders who take more intersectional approaches. Per Candid’s data, between 2004 and 2024, grantmakers have awarded almost $3 billion to support immigrant rights in the U.S.

Given Biden’s election-year immigration orders and the looming threat of a possible second Trump presidency, which promises to be especially hostile to immigrants, funding policy advocacy efforts for immigrant rights is especially important. To that end, here are some of the key funders doing that right now.

Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund

Based in California, the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund includes immigrant rights among its six key areas of focus, zeroing in especially on helping immigrant children and youth thrive and reach their potential.

The fund works with both state-based and national partners. Grants related to immigrant rights and policy advocacy include support for Black Alliance for Just Immigration, California Immigrant Policy Center, Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), Community Change, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, National Immigration Forum, National Immigration Law Center, and the Youth Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, among others.