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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 3, 2025
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Spencer Tilger | media@refugeerights.org
“BROKEN PRIORITIES”: IRAP DECRIES EXPANSION OF ANTI-IMMIGRANT AGENDA UNDER RECONCILIATION BILL
The bill’s environmental provisions will also worsen global climate displacement
(WASHINGTON, DC) — Today, the House of Representatives narrowly passed a reconciliation bill 218-214 that amounts to an all-out assault on immigrant communities. The bill vastly expands funding for detention and deportation, while excluding refugees from critical health care and food assistance programs.
The bill steeply increases or imposes new fees to apply for work authorization, asylum, and other humanitarian pathways, making it harder for people who have been displaced due to dangerous conditions in their home countries to apply for legal pathways to safety in the United States.
The International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) strongly opposes this bill, which will accelerate the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda.
“This bill represents deeply broken priorities,” said Rricha deCant, IRAP’s Senior Policy Director. “It takes away funding for vital services from those who need them the most and puts that money toward tax breaks for billionaires and attacks on immigrant communities across the country. Congress should focus on investing in programs that help our communities prosper, not on ripping families apart.”
In addition to impacting communities in the United States, the bill is a giveaway to fossil fuel interests that will gut clean energy and climate protections with global consequences.
“This bill accelerates the climate crisis while further militarizing immigration policy,” said Julia Neusner, IRAP’s Climate Research & Operations Specialist. “These policies that favor profit over people will drive the displacement of communities around the world, while also shutting down their ability to seek safety in the United States.”
The International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) is a global legal aid and advocacy organization working to create a world where refugees and all people seeking safety are empowered to claim their right to freedom of movement and a path to lasting refuge. Everyone should have a safe place to live and a safe way to get there.
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