Friend,
When I was a teenager, my father, Luis, was racially profiled by local law enforcement in Texas and deported to Mexico. He died in exile in 2024, and I never saw him again.
My mother, Elia, passed away because she couldn't access the cancer treatment she needed as an undocumented person.
I'm sharing this because I know the desperation of searching for a lawyer for someone you love and not finding one in time. Today, millions of families are living through that same search. As of May, there were 1.7 million pending cases where people were facing deportation proceedings without a lawyer by their side.1 Even children have stood alone before government prosecutors.
That's why United We Dream went to the ACLU and the Abundant Futures Fund with an idea: build a rapid-response legal defense effort that could quickly scale up access to lawyers. Together, we launched the Defending Our Neighbors Fund, which has raised more than $15 million so far to expand legal representation and enable trusted community legal organizations to take on more clients.
The Defending Our Neighbors Fund is powered by everyday people like you, stepping up to build a vital lifeline supporting our immigrant neighbors, loved ones, and communities against injustice. Chip in $10, or whatever you can, to help put a lawyer beside someone who is facing this system alone.
Studies show that having a lawyer sharply increases a person's chances of being released from detention and staying with their family.1 That is the whole difference. A lawyer is often the line between a family staying together and a family losing someone forever.
For too long, philanthropy has treated directly impacted people as storytellers rather than strategists. Immigrant youth were expected to share the pain of losing status, losing a parent, losing a sibling to detention — while institutions kept control of the money, the timelines, and the decisions.
The Defending Our Neighbors Fund is proof of something different. The people living through this crisis are the ones designing the response. Trust moves faster than bureaucracy. Resources flow to the communities already doing the work.
Immigrant youth built this fund because we believe no one should face this system alone — and we're still here, organizing, refusing to stay silent until Congress delivers the answers our community needs and a real pathway to citizenship. The administration's mass delegalization agenda has made the need for the Defending Our Neighbors Fund grow exponentially.
We should all be treated fairly and with dignity. In this moment of division, we must all come together to defend our neighbors. Please give $10, $25, or whatever you can today.
Thank you for helping us defend our communities at such a critical moment. Your support makes all the difference.
In gratitude and solidarity,
Greisa Martínez Rosas
Executive Director, United We Dream
-
"I lost my parents to the immigration system. Now youth like me lead the fight." The Chronicle of Philanthropy. August 19, 2026.
This message was sent to [email protected]. Email is one of the most important tools we have to reach supporters like you, but you can let us know if you'd like to receive fewer emails.
