Project 2025 is the radical 920-page blueprint by The Heritage Foundation to enable a future presidential administration to take swift, far-right action to dismantle our democratic institutions & redefine the way our country operates.

Love your landscaper? Your housekeeper? Your caregiver? Your nanny? How about the server at your favorite Ridgefield restaurant? Or that helpful store clerk at Stop & Shop?

Whether they are citizens or planning to be soon, they and members of their families could find themselves on the deportation short list.

MAGA Extremists have been campaigning hard on immigration, and Project 2025 intends to deliver on their promises.

It calls for the mass deportation of immigrants and the dismantling of the foundations of our immigration system, notably going around Congress and the courts to do so. Immigration appears over 154 times in Project 2025, in sections about Homeland Security (which it intends to dismantle. The Justice Department, Education and Housing as well as Homeland Security, which protects our borders, counters terrorism, protects cybersecurity, and responds to natural and man-made disasters. (See pages 138-153.)

Exactly how the government could conduct a campaign of mass deportation, arresting, detaining and deporting millions, has yet to be detailed, as Donald Trump neglected to answer in the September 10, 2024 debate.

But there’s plenty more to be concerned about, including plans to:

• Pave the way for mass family separation and large-scale detention of young children by eliminating important benefits for unaccompanied children.
  Block federal financial aid for up to two-thirds of all American college students including Dreamers with legal status to access in-state tuition.
  Terminate the legal status of 500,000 Dreamers by eliminating staff time for reviewing and processing renewal applications.
• Reduce protections for immigrants seeking asylum to escape human trafficking and domestic or gang violence.
• Suspend updates to the annual eligible country lists for H-2A and H-2B temporary worker visas, thereby excluding most populations from filling critical gaps in the agricultural, construction, hospitality, and forestry sectors. (page 611)
• Bar U.S. citizens from qualifying for federal housing subsidies if they live with anyone who is not a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident.
• Force states to share driver’s license and taxpayer identification information with federal authorities or risk critical funding.
• Create a show-me-your-papers style mandate and require ICE to remove, arrest, and detain immigration violators anywhere in the country and without warrant, if possible.

Project 2025 also encourages the use of the US military to crack down on peaceful migrants arriving at the border. The proposal also considers engaging in war with drug cartels in Mexico.

And if you think inflation is high now – just wait till essential workers in agriculture supply chain hospitality – hell, our local grocery stores are deleted from the workforce. 

Immigration impacts us all.

One Ridgefielder shared that her mom, who is at home in hospice in Florida, is cared for 24-7 by 3 Jamaican women. “I’m not there,” she told us. “So, I depend on the love and compassionate care they give her. I don’t know what I’d do without them. They are citizens. But fearful nonetheless.”

Another Ridgefielder told us that their contractor – a nationalized citizen – fears for his family and neighbors – many of whom live next door in Danbury.”

Scary? You’re damn straight it is.

Legal immigration, including high-skilled and temporary employment, family reunification, and humanitarian protection, has been a foundational part of the American culture and economy for decades

Immigrants fill jobs American workers don’t want or can’t fill. They empower our workforce to be more efficient, and feed the diversity and innovation that has always been at the heart of our economic strength.

Democrats supported the most conservative legislation drafted by Senator James Langford, R-OK, and our very own Senator Chris Murphy. Chairman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. To read more: bit.ly/3Xr8G5c. Trump pressured his cohorts to kill the bill so he could make immigration an issue in the 2024 election.

Project 2025 is not some far-off dystopian vision. It’s coming to a neighborhood near you. That’s why it’s critical for everyone in blue states or border states to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot.

We need President Kamala Harris and a House of Representatives, Senate, State and Local government like Ridgefield’s own Julie Kushner, Cece Maher, Aimee Berger-Girvalo and Savet Constantine, who will support our friends and neighbors.

Our friends and neighbors are counting on us.

#Immigration #Project 2025