Policy leaders are voicing deep concerns over Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint which they say threatens essential protections for immigrants, reproductive rights, the LGBTQ+ community, and climate and healthcare measures across the U.S. 

In a media briefing on October 4, hosted by Ethnic Media Services, a panel of experts gathered to discuss the dangers Project 2025 seeks to bring.  

Speakers

  • Manjusha (Manju) P. Kulkarni, Esq, Executive Director, AAPI Equity Alliance
  • Sulma Arias, Executive Director, People’s Action Institute and People’s Action
  • Yvonne Gutierrez, Chief Strategy Officer, Reproductive Freedom for All
  • Tony Hoang, Executive Director, Equality California

This 900-page document, released by the Heritage Foundation in 2022 and titled “Mandate for Leadership,” aims to reform the government significantly, especially if Donald Trump were to secure the presidency in 2024. Political analysts suggest this initiative may steer the U.S. toward autocratic governance by undermining the rule of law, blending church and state interests, and threatening individual freedoms.

Climate and Health Impact

Project 2025 advocates for privatizing public services, including healthcare and utilities, which already face rising costs. “We don’t have to wait until these measures are implemented to see how they impact our community. It’s already happening.” says Sulma Arias, citing the strain on communities nationwide. 

The document proposes cutting back on climate protections by eliminating disaster relief loans for small businesses, privatizing FEMA flood insurance, and dismantling agencies like the National Weather Service. Arias points to the devastation of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina as a foreboding sign of things to come if these measures take effect.

Healthcare would also undergo drastic changes. The plan suggests cutting Medicaid benefits, raising Medicare prescription prices, including for vital medications like insulin, and repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), leaving millions uninsured. “For many people, this means the difference between life and death,” warns Arias. “With record profits, United Health has denied over 250 million cases in a year, for example … What’s behind this is corporate greed, and a fight over who gets to control the growing inequality in this country.”

Reproductive Rights

If implemented, Project 2025’s health proposals would limit reproductive rights significantly, according to Yvonne Gutierrez. The plan exploits the 1873 Comstock Act to ban mailing FDA-approved abortion medication nationwide, which would effectively enforce a blanket abortion ban. About 63 percent of Americans support abortion access, highlighting the public opposition to such restrictions.

The proposal also suggests rolling back requirements for hospitals to provide emergency abortion care, allowing health providers to deny reproductive services, and tracking birth and abortion outcomes to facilitate patient prosecution, weakening HIPAA protections. Gutierrez emphasizes the impact on patients’ lives, recalling a recent case where a cancer patient in Florida was denied a needed abortion due to restrictive laws. 

“A patient who, after her cancer returned, learned she was pregnant and needed chemo right away, and therefore needed an abortion. No provider in Florida could provide this, because she was just over the six week mark. Already ill herself, she had to leave the state,” said Gutierrez.

“Those in favor of reproductive restrictions talk a lot about exceptions. Exceptions don’t work,” she added. “This patient needed life-saving care, but because she wasn’t going to die tomorrow, it didn’t count … Even when lives are on the line, where doctors are too afraid to give care or patients are too afraid to seek it, it becomes too late.”

LGBTQ+ Rights

Project 2025’s policies would also imperil LGBTQ+ rights, says Tony Hoang, by equating gender identity with obscenity and proposing to defund providers who support transgender individuals. The blueprint suggests revoking federal funds for gender-affirming care, disbanding protections for LGBTQ+ youth in schools, and restricting educational support.

“Project 2025 would reverse Biden policies that protect folks from being discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace,” Hoang said. “This is not just in a vacuum. As LGBTQ+ lives are threatened, so are other communities.”

Immigration Under Project 2025

Manjusha Kulkarni warns that Project 2025 poses a serious threat to immigrant communities. Among its policies are mass deportations and warrantless searches, enabling federal agents to enter private properties to find undocumented individuals. With approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants currently residing in the U.S., these measures could affect millions of lives. The blueprint would also reduce family-based immigration and work visas, eliminate Temporary Protected Status, and restrict legal immigration processes.

The document uses every opportunity to demonize immigrants, using terms like ‘illegal aliens,’ and ‘infiltrate,’” said Kulkarni. “All of this serves to fan the flames of racism, and we’ve seen the effects recently with false claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.”

Polls indicate that Americans have mixed views on immigration reform; while a majority favor a path to citizenship and the employment of refugees, roughly half support a border wall and deportations.

The Push for Power

Polls indicate that most Americans oppose Project 2025’s controversial proposals, such as replacing career officials with political appointees and eliminating the Department of Education. Kulkarni believes these plans ultimately serve to consolidate power in response to America’s shifting demographics. 

In our democracy, if you can’t do something when it’s unpopular, you can do it by taking away the rights of individuals through executive action … It’s going to take all of us to fight that.”

With implications for core freedoms and protections across the nation, Project 2025 has sparked growing alarm among policy leaders and advocates who argue that it could fundamentally reshape the landscape of American rights and governance.

 

Images provided by Ethnic Media Services.