President Trump’s Executive Orders Will Cost LGBTQ Immigrant Lives
CONTACT: Kristen Thompson, Communications Director
310-780-0736 | communications@immigrationequality.org
New York, NY (January 22, 2025) — Following President Trump’s inauguration on Monday, he issued a slate of executive orders, some of which target immigrants and their families and effectively block all pathways to safety in the United States for LGBTQ people fleeing persecution worldwide. (More information below.)
Aaron C. Morris, Immigration Equality’s Executive Director, issued the following statement:
“President Trump’s agenda to detain, deport, and dehumanize people is an affront to fundamental American values. The executive orders will cost lives, separate families, and trap queer people in places of extreme danger. They are an overt, illegal power grab with mortal consequences for LGBTQ people seeking safety in the United States. Instead of scapegoating minorities for political gain, the United States must remain a nation where all LGBTQ people can openly express themselves without the fear of attack or reprisal. We cannot allow the President to implement these radical policies.”
Summary of relevant executive orders:
By reinstating illegal policies like Remain in Mexico and shutting down refugee resettlement, President Trump has effectively trapped LGBTQ people in dangerous conditions that will cost many of them their lives.
In addition, Trump has taken extreme, unprecedented, and impermissible steps (1) to weaponize the military against immigrants, (2) to end birthright citizenship, and (3) to eliminate due process protections for everyday people. His goal is to block all immigrants from entering the U.S., and to institute mass detention and deportation within the interior of the nation.
The President also issued a sweeping executive order that ends federal recognition of transgender and non-binary people. Specifically, the order requires the federal government to use the term sex instead of gender, and states that the U.S. government will only recognize two sexes, male and female. It further instructs the government to erase all federal policies supporting a person’s gender identity, including the issuance of accurate passports, visas, and Global Entry documents. In addition, the order instructs the federal government to ensure, including through litigation, a person’s “freedom to express” its new definition of sex and “the right” to enforce that definition in workplaces and federally funded entities.
Through the orders, the President seeks to subvert the Constitution, ignore the will of Congress, and defy binding decisions of the federal judiciary.
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For 30 years, Immigration Equality has promoted justice and equality for LGBTQ and HIV-positive immigrants, winning major victories in the courts and in Congress.
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