Project 2025 condemned by bilingual campaign aimed at Latino voters

Seven advocacy organizations that have been working to engage Latino voters ahead of the presidential election found that many of them are familiar with Project 2025, but few understood the specifics behind the 900-plus-page conservative policy plan and its potential impact if implemented. These groups, most of which are left-leaning or progressive, are coming together under a new coalition to launch a bilingual campaign condemning Project 2025 and its stances on specific issues that are important to Latino voters — such as education, health care access, reproductive rights, climate change and immigration, as well as jobs and workers rights. The “Defendiendo Nuestro Futuro, Latinos Against Project 2025” campaign aims to target millions of Latino voters in swing states through door-to-door canvassing efforts, phone-banking and social media. "The more we educate the community about this plan and its implications ... the more Latino voters will understand that Project 2025 is not in their best interest," Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the immigrant rights advocacy group America’s Voice, said during the campaign's launch Tuesday. Latino voters stand to reshape the presidential race in ways that are hard to predict since many of them are young people or newly registered voters, according to a memo on a recent Equis Research poll. “There’s a huge gap of information missing on Project 2025 in the Latino community,” said Yadira Sánchez, executive director of the Latino civic engagement organization Poder Latinx. Sánchez said her organization speaks to about 200 people weekly as part of their efforts to engage Latino voters in six states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Washington, California and Texas. Based on the conversations they've had, she estimated that "less than 20% know what Project 2025 is," in part because there is little information about the project in Spanish. At the same time, TikTok posts about Project 2025 garnered millions of views on the social media platform earlier this year. TikTok is hugely popular among young Hispanic adults, most of whom prefer to get their news in English and from digital sources. A point that got a lot of attention on TikTok was Project 2025's plan to limit federal education policy and, ultimately, eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. Katharine Pichardo-Erskine, executive director of the Latino Victory Foundation, argued this would ultimately cut "vital education programs that help break the cycle of poverty" in Latino communities. Pichardo-Erskine said her organization recently commissioned a national poll on Latino voters that included a question about Project 2025. "As a result of the poll, a plurality of Latinos are familiar with Project 2025," Pichardo-Erskine said. Of those who had heard about it, "almost 40% understand that it’s somewhat bad for them." She added that "there’s still a lot of education that we need to do" in order for people to understand how it could affect their daily lives. Developed by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 is a transition project that includes a policy blueprint and a personnel database for the next Republican president and counts the support of more than 100 conservative organizations. Many of these organizations are led by close allies and top former advisers of former President Donald Trump, who is the Republican presidential nominee. Trump has publicly disavowed Project 2025 and redirected supporters to his own campaign platform named Agenda47. Recommended Vote Watch Texas voter purge may be sending a chilling message, lawmakers and advocates warn Still, the Latino groups believe there's not enough of a separation as they called special attention to overlaps on conservative views on issues, including immigration. Project 2025 calls for the "mass deportation" of undocumented immigrants by expanding the powers of immigration enforcement authorities and finishing the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Signs that read "mass deportation" were given out to attendees of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month when Trump accepted the Republican nomination, said David Huerta, president of the Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West, a labor union in California. "So, it's very clear what the agenda of a potential Trump presidency would be if he's elected in November," Huerta said. Impacts on health care and abortion access, climate legislation When it comes to health care access and reproductive rights, Project 2025 proposes limiting Medicaid through spending caps, moving away from the program's open-ended funding structure, which allows it to more easily adjust to the needs of the population, especially in times of crisis. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, research has shown that Medicaid expansion has contributed to a decrease in uninsured rates among Latinos from 2010 to 2022. Proposed Medicaid spending caps could affect health care access for the nearly 18 million Latinos enrolled in the program. The conservative policy road map also states that "abortion is not health care" and proposes strict limitations to it. Almost 6.7 million Latinas of reproductive age already live in states that have banned or are likely to ban abortions, making them the largest group of women of color in the nation affected by current or likely state abortion bans. Project 2025 policies would deprioritize efforts to fight climate change and roll back various environmental regulations considered burdensome for business development. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Latinos are more likely to experience the detrimental consequences of climate change and global warming since they face higher temperature-mortality rates compared with non-Hispanic whites and live in areas prone to inland and coastal flooding. The three states with the highest Hispanic populations (California, Texas and Florida) are also among the hardest hit by natural disasters such as wildfires, increasingly stronger hurricanes and extreme heat waves. Project 2025 also outlines ways to stop the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from collecting employment statistics based on race and ethnicity, which would make it more difficult to track discrimination in the workplace, as well as dismantle the National Labor Relations Board’s oversight role. Huerta said this move would erode workers' protections and their right to unionize. "Too often as a community, we choose not to vote, but this time we have to vote," Huerta said. "Never before have we seen the consequences of not voting as real as they are now." A spokesperson for the Heritage Foundation did not respond to an email and phone call seeking comment. But the organization's Project 2025 website states, "The Left has spent millions fearmongering about Project 2025, because they’re terrified of losing their power." Image: Nicole AcevedoNicole Acevedo Nicole Acevedo is a reporter for NBC Latino. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.