Defending Our Neighbors. Funding the Frontline.

The Defending Our Neighbors Fund is powered by everyday people, like you, stepping up and building a vital lifeline to support our immigrant neighbors, loved ones, and communities against injustice.

Supported by United We Dream and the ACLU, the Defending Our Neighbors Fund is hosted at Abundant Futures Fund, a fiscally sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. The Fund aims to raise and deploy 30 million dollars to organizations that provide legal representation and, when possible, bond assistance to immigrants facing detention and deportation.

We all deserve to be treated fairly and with dignity. Yet every day, families are forced to navigate a complex and punishing immigration system alone, without access to immigration legal services or counsel. Even young children, the most vulnerable members of our communities, are facing trained prosecutors without anyone by their side.

This is why the Defending Our Neighbors Fund exists.

Today, there are more than 6 million U.S. households who have a family member at risk of detention or deportation. Right now, the federal government is funneling 170 billion dollars of taxpayer funding into dramatically increasing enforcement in our cities, while reducing support for legal service organizations that provide critical legal representation for immigrants. The Defending Our Neighbors Fund is a rapid-response effort created to meet this urgent need head-on and ensure families have access to life-saving legal support and, when possible, bond assistance.

Access to legal representation makes a profound difference in whether families can stay together.

As people’s due process rights continue to be violated — affecting tens of thousands of people who are immigrants, children, and even U.S. citizens and green card holders — the need for legal counsel is skyrocketing. Studies show that in 2024, there were more than 2.5 million cases in immigration court where people did not have legal representation. Having access to a lawyer is often the difference between a family staying together or being separated indefinitely.

To meet the ballooning demand at this moment, the Defending Our Neighbors Fund deploys high-impact grants to trusted organizations providing legal assistance and, when possible, bond support to communities in need. 

The Fund assesses where the need and opportunity for impact is greatest. Already, the Fund has surged support, for example, to organizations who are: 

• Deeply rooted in and trusted by immigrant communities 
• Serving areas with large immigrant populations 
• Near ICE detention centers, or within legal deserts, and 
• Providing legal services to vulnerable groups, including children, women fleeing violence, and people at risk of deportation without due process.

In this moment of division, we must all come together to defend our neighbors.

We, the people, will power this movement with small dollar contributions. Your donation supports trusted organizations providing legal representation, immigrant family support, and, when possible, bond assistance to communities in need.

Thank you for helping us defend our communities at such a critical moment. Your support makes all the difference.