WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) condemns the Trump Administration’s government shutdown, emphasizing its disproportionate impact on marginalized communities across the United States. The current administration’s approach to the budgetary process has been partisan, aiming to strip Congress of its “power of the purse” through unilateral actions, prioritizing a massive investment of 170 billion for immigration enforcement instead of supporting the American people with the rising costs of healthcare, housing, and other social safety net programs. 

A government shutdown was a choice that all three chambers of government made to divest in critical healthcare, nutrition programs, and essential services, disproportionately harming Black, Brown, disabled, and low-income people. This deliberate policy choice fuels a cycle of increased inequities for the most vulnerable Americans, and at a time when the economy is beginning to show signs of economic stress due to Trump’s failed economic policies. The FY26 funding bill was a last chance for the government to correct the harms of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” as some of the rider policies will go into effect at the end of this year, throwing millions of Americans off Medicaid, and ending food security programs for low-income families across the country. 

Said Nicole Melaku, NPNA executive director, “Through its deliberate policy choices, this administration is actively choosing partisan politics over solutions that support working and low-income families. We believe in a government that invests in its people’s well-being, in policy solutions, and in well-functioning agencies that serve the people who fund them. As fingers are pointed, this fight is about so much more than dollars and cents; it is a clear demonstration of a budgetary process that is being held hostage for political folly and is now weaponized as another excuse for Trump to shutter crucial federal government agencies as part of Project 2025.  

Across the political aisle, we call on all members of Congress to come together to champion a budget that reinstates healthcare for millions of Americans and keeps the government functioning. Now is the time to prioritize policies that strengthen our country and our democracy, not ones that tear us further apart.”

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The National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) is a multi-ethnic, multiracial coalition of 88 of the nation’s largest immigrant and refugee rights organizations with reach across over 42 states. Together with our members, we advance immigrant and refugee equity and inclusion, build and expand immigration legal services and integration programming capacity, and drive campaigns that strengthen democracy through increased civic participation. See our website for more information at partnershipfornewamericans.org.