I lost my parents to the immigration system. Now youth like me lead the fight.
Immigrant youth know what people facing deportation need most: lawyers. So they built a $15 million legal defense fund and a new model for rapid-response philanthropy. The future of philanthropy is not being invented in boardrooms. It is being built by young people sitting in immigration court hallways trying to find lawyers for their parents. By students raising bond money after classmates disappear into detention. By immigrant communities creating emergency-response networks because they know institutions won’t arrive fast enough to save them. For immigrant youth, philanthropy is not an intellectual exercise. It is survival infrastructure. For me, this is personal — I was one of those youth myself. As a teenager, I witnessed my father, Luis, deported to Mexico after local law enforcement officers in Texas racially profiled him. He later died in exile in 2024. My mother, Elia, died because she was unable to access adequate cancer treatment due to her undocumented status. Today I lead United We Dream, the nation’s largest immigrant youth-led organization. As the Trump administration carries out the most sweeping
