The dangers of Project 2025 are for everyone. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, launched this project with the aim of promoting extreme policies that reduce opportunities for migrants and freedoms for women, LGBTQ+ communities, and others.
In 2022, the Heritage Foundation has proposed Project 2025 to reshape the U.S. Federal Government and consolidate executive power over the presidency, should Donald Trump win the election, experts said during a conference held by Ethnic Media Services.
The panelists describe Project 2025 as an ideological agenda designed to push the United States toward autocracy—that is, forming a government in which the will of one person is the supreme law—and if implemented would undermine the rule of law, the separation of powers, and threaten civil liberties.
Manjusha P. Kulkarni, executive director of AAPI Equity Alliance, a coalition of nearly 50 community-based organizations that together serve and represent the 1.6 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Los Angeles County, said the bill is an existential threat to their communities.
"The Heritage Foundation described it as an opening salvo for the 2025 transition. So, they themselves have put it in a place where we know it will be used and implemented," he said.
In its more than 900 pages, the document takes every opportunity to hurt immigrant communities by using terms like “illegal immigrants infiltrate and commit crimes,” Kulkarni said.
Right now, more than 14,000 people can continue working in the U.S. thanks to DACA. If it is eliminated, people who arrived as children could face deportation to other countries, putting many at risk as they often have no connection to their families, friends, and communities.
Bill 2025 would also eliminate family-based immigration, which has been a key tool for thousands of families to be reunited in the United States, including Kulkarni's, she said.
"It would cut back on the H-1B visa program and even eliminate birthright citizenship and citizenship for those running for office. So the danger of Project 2025 is real, and while we still can't believe they would actually put all this in writing and in order, we are now informed about this extremist agenda, we can inform our communities today, and we can take steps to protect ourselves," he concluded.
Sulma Arias, executive director of People's Action Institute and People's Action, explained that her goal is to speak to almost half a million undecided voters or voters in conflict, so that they know the threats that are at their door.
Arias says there is almost no education or conversation about the 2025 project in other languages such as Spanish, which creates misinformation, leaving communities without the opportunity to prepare for the possible execution of the project.
"We are especially analyzing the 2025 project from the perspective of what will happen with housing, what will happen with health care and the need for public services, which is extremely important," Arias explained.
For her part, Yvonne Gutierrez, strategy director of Reproductive Freedom for All, commented that this project would effectively prohibit abortion in all 50 states with or without the support of Congress and the courts, meaning they do not need a national abortion ban.
In terms of the facts for the LGBTQ+ community, Tony Hoang, executive director of Equality California, commented that this project would be a wrecking ball and many of the foundations of civil rights and LGBTQ+ rights would be lost, "The Transgender 2025 project abandons the act of being transgender or transgender ideology in favor of pornography and declares that it should be illegal anyway."
Hoang said that if implemented, it would turn back time and allow discrimination based on race, color, religion or condition, a battle that has been won through years of sacrifice.
The important thing now is to stay informed about what is to come, in order to make the right decisions now that there is enough time to protect the communities that are in danger.
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