DHS cuts funds for groups helping legal immigrants become U.S. citizens

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Christina Schoendorf’s clients at United Community Ministries in Alexandria, Virginia, come from around the globe, but they have one thing in common: They all want to become U.S. citizens.

In 2023, the Department of Homeland Security awarded United Community a nearly $200,000, two-year grant to help immigrants, such as those from Afghanistan and Ivory Coast, prepare for citizenship. Through the Citizenship and Integration Grant Program (also known as the Citizenship and Assimilation program), Schoendorf had hoped to expand the organization’s services to help an additional 120 people become naturalized.

“They work very hard. They work more than one job. They have families, they have responsibilities, but on top of that, they are trying to do what it takes to become a U.S. citizen,” Schoendorf said of the prospective Americans she works with.

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But the group’s plan was thrown into disarray this past week when DHS abruptly canceled the grant program, eliminating more than $22 million in federal funding. United Community is among the dozens of community and faith-based groups, public libraries, and adult education and literacy organizations that received notices Thursday informing them that their work “no longer effectuates the program goals and the Department’s priorities.”

The decision to cut the grant program came in response to a directive from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem to “restrict grant funding to sanctuary cities,” a senior DHS official said in a statement to The Washington Post.

“Taxpayer funded programs that … support, or have the potential to support, illegal immigration through funding illegal activities or support for illegal aliens are out of step with the President and Secretary Noem’s priorities – as well as common sense,” the official said. “The gravy train is over.”

The groups affected by the grant cuts are baffled by the rationale, given that their programs help people follow official procedures to gain citizenship. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website, only lawful permanent residents qualify for assistance under the grant program.

“Our funds were used for people who were here legally,” said Jennielynn Holmes, CEO of Catholic Charities of Northwest California. “They went through the immigration system legally, or else they wouldn’t qualify for this program or these funds. They don’t have a recent criminal background because you don’t qualify if you have those things.”

The grant cuts are going to affect “people who did everything right, went through a very challenging immigration system [and] got to the other side,” Holmes said.

That includes foreign health-care workers in the United States, said George Gresham, president of the 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, the country’s largest health-care union. He noted that staffing shortages are “already threatening the quality of care and the health of our nation.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services established the citizenship grant program in 2009 to support nonprofit organizations and educational institutions “actively working to remove barriers to naturalization.” The program is funded primarily through congressional appropriations.

Grantees provide English-language and civics instruction, and offer legal assistance with naturalization applications, among other services.

USCIS says the program has helped more than 350,000 immigrants prepare for citizenship, distributing more than $155 million through 644 grants to organizations in 41 states and the District of Columbia. The majority of grants were awarded to organizations based in California, Florida, New York and Texas.

Jose J. Vaquera, chief operating officer of Friendly House, a nonprofit in Phoenix that provides education and social services, said his organization no longer has the means to continue its citizenship classes or file applications for naturalization.

In Los Angeles, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) was able to help more than 200 lawful permanent residents apply for naturalization since 2023 using its USCIS grant money. “It’s 200 people that we usually, without this money, would not be able to assist,” said Karla Aguayo, the group’s director of legal services.

Aguayo said CHIRLA will have to reach out to private donors and foundations for help, a move that pits the group against other community organizations seeking alternative funding sources.

“Resources are limited,” said Peyman Malaz, chief operating officer of the Pars Equality Center, a California nonprofit. “Without this support, we risk losing a unique and proven model that helps newcomers truly become part of the American fabric.”

La Casa de Don Pedro in Newark typically helps up to 300 lawful permanent residents become naturalized citizens each year. Now the organization, which has been a grant recipient for over 10 years, will have to weigh layoffs, suspension of services or fee-based models.

“We are left wondering why [DHS] would eliminate opportunities for those who ‘did it the right way’ to complete their citizenship journey,” president and chief executive Peter T. Rosario said in an email. “If we want people to follow the proper naturalization process, then we need the resources to make that happen.”

Literacy Network, a nonprofit in Madison, Wisconsin, has seen an influx in immigrants seeking naturalization services over the past year. Robin Ryan, the organization’s executive director, said as the Trump administration has increased its deportation efforts, immigrants have sought out the security of naturalization.

The Literacy Network had been able to match that demand with funding from USCIS. But Thursday’s grant termination means the organization will have to reduce its programs, Ryan said.

“To just cut the support out from under them is not what we would expect of our own government,” Ryan said.

Legal action

Representatives of many of the immigration services organizations who spoke to The Washington Post for this story said they weren’t surprised when they received the DHS termination notice because of the administration’s anti-immigration rhetoric.

On Jan. 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring Noem to “review and, if appropriate, audit all contracts, grants, or other agreements providing Federal funding to nongovernmental organizations supporting or providing services, either directly or indirectly, to removable or illegal aliens.”

The order instructed Noem to suspend payments pending the results of the agencywide review and terminate “all such agreements determined to be in violation of law or to be sources of waste, fraud, or abuse.”

Eight days later, Noem issued a memorandum freezing “all Department grant disbursements and assessments of grant applications that: (a) go to nonprofit organizations or for which nonprofit organizations are eligible, and (b) touch in any way on immigration.”

Nine organizations, including CHIRLA and the D.C.-based Central American Resource Center, sued Noem, Trump and USCIS official Kika Scott on March 17, arguing that the administration had overstepped its authority in pausing the congressionally appropriated funds.

The plaintiffs asked U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby to restore funding, citing “immense and immediate harm.”

“The changes wrought by this sudden, unexplained funding freeze damage the reputations that Plaintiffs have built over years in their communities, particularly with hard-to-reach client populations,” the plaintiffs wrote.

Solutions in Hometown Connections, a nonprofit based in Maryland, “has already been forced to turn away a client whose husband abused and abandoned her, and who cannot speak or read English, for lack of funds to provide additional clients with services,” the plaintiffs wrote.

Griggsby is scheduled to hold a hearing on the plaintiffs’ motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction Tuesday.

In the meantime, groups and educational institutions have said they remain committed to serving their immigrant communities.

“We’re not going to stop the work or pause it or do something different,” said Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid litigation director Luke Grundman. “We’ve had clients who’ve been waiting decades to do this. They’ve been in the United States for a very long time. They have kids and grandkids who are here as citizens, and some of them are looking to naturalize as the one thing they do at the end of their lives.”

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