Month: April 2025

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Executive orders – part 1

It seems like every time we turn around, there’s something new happening to try to wrap our heads around.

We’re 100 days into this administration–and so far there are 139 executive orders that the president has signed. It seems almost impossible to keep up with them…and it’s hard to figure out just what the impact will be.

Nonprofits are being hard hit. The National Council of Nonprofits has published a list of executive orders that affect nonprofits–and they will significantly impact the functions of nonprofits.

The titles of some of these orders sound innocent and innocuous, but digging deeper into the implications of them shows the significant potential they have to reshape the United States from a country that has been a symbol of hope and a leader in promoting worldwide connections. It is important to understand what is happening.

Here’s a brief listing of the currently signed executive orders by their titles and a brief summary of their impacts. If you want more detail–or to keep updated, you can go here to get the most up-to-date version: https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/files/media/documents/2025/chart-executive-orders.pdf

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Federal government DEI programs and trainings, often provided by or in partnership with nonprofits, will be eliminated. In addition, President Trump has signed EOs extending “anti-DEI” efforts to the private sector.

  • Ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity
    • Requires every federal grant or contract to certify it doesn’t operate any DEI programs that would violate “anti-discrimination” laws
  • Ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing
    • Directs all federal agencies to terminate all DEI programs in federal agencies
  • Implementing the president’s “Department of Government Efficiency” workforce optimization
    • Requires agencies to prepare for large-scale reductions in force, prioritizing anything that includes DEI
  • Initial rescissions of harmful executive orders and actions
    • Rescinds previous Biden orders to expand DEI
  • Reforming accreditation to strengthen higher education
    • Investigate and terminate “unlawful discrimination” caused by DEI policies and initiatives
  • Reinstating common sense school discipline policies
    • Report on “discriminatory-equity-ideology-based” school discipline and behavior modification policies to prevent federal funding from going to those programs
  • Restoring equality of opportunity and meritocracy
    • Initiate the repeal or amendment of regulations for Title VI of the Civil Rights Act

Federal Government

Nonprofits partnering with federal government agencies or receiving federal funding, especially through government grants and contracts, may experience longer wait times and slower processing, loss of points of contacts or difficulty reaching them, and increased strain on relationships.

Nonprofits should advocate for and talk to government partners about government grants and contracting reform and provide specific examples of how processes and reporting requirements could be streamlined.

Nonprofits will no longer have direct White House connections through the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

  • Memorandum for the heads of executive departments and agencies
    • Review all funding to NGOs to remove funding for those that “undermine the national interest”
  • Improving education outcomes by empowering parents, states, and communities
    • Requires Secretary of Education to facilitate the closing of the Department of Education
  • Ensuring lawful governance and implementing the president’s “Department of Government Efficiency” deregulatory initiative
    • Directs agency heads to coordinate with DOGE, team leads, and OMB to ensure that all regulations are consistent with administration policy
  • Ensuring accountability for all agencies
    • Requires all agencies to submit proposed and final regulations to the Executive Office before they are published in the Federal Register
  • Radical transparency about wasteful spending
    • Requires agency heads to make as many details public as possible of every terminated program, cancelled contract, terminated grant or any other discontinued use of Federal funds
  • Restoring accountability to policy-influencing positions within the federal workforce
    • Makes it easier to terminate employees
  • Establishing and implementing the president’s “Department of Government Efficiency”
  • Return to in-person work
    • For all federal employees
  • Regulatory freeze pending review
  • Initial rescissions of harmful executive orders and actions
    • Removes pay transparency and equity requirements; removes requirement for federal employees to commit to an ethics code and not accept lobbyist gifts; rescinds Biden order establishing the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships
  • Memorandum on ensuring the enforcement of federal rule of civil procedure 65(c)
    • Requires all plaintiffs seeking an injunction to post a bond equal to the governments potential cost and damages
  • Continuing the reduction of the federal bureaucracy
    • Eliminates to the maximum possible numerous agencies
  • Eliminating waste and saving taxpayer dollars by consolidating procurement
    • Consolidates all domestic federal procurement into the General Services Administration
  • Implementing the president’s “Department of Government Efficiency” cost efficiency initiative
    • Requires review and justification for all payments for covered contracts and grants
  • Stopping waste, fraud and abuse by eliminating information silos
    • Directs agency heads to facilitate intra- and inter-agency sharing and consolidation of unclassified information and ensure that the government has complete access to all state programs that receive federal funding
  • Hiring freeze
  • Directing the repeal of unlawful regulations
    • Requires review and repeal of unlawful and potentially unlawful regulations within 60 days and directs agencies to finalize rules without notice and comment
  • Reducing anti-competitive regulatory barriers
    • Requires agencies to identify anti-competitive regulations
  • Restoring common sense to federal procurement
    • Requires agencies to procure only provisions required by statute or are otherwise necessary to support simplicity and usability
  • Ensuring commercial cost-effective solutions in federal contracts
    • Conduct a review of all open solicitations and consolidate them into a proposed application for approval

Immigration

Nonprofits working with immigrant populations, providing legal assistance or training, or delivering humanitarian or other direct aid, may see the need for services increase, may lose funding, and could be targeted by law enforcement. Human services and social services could also be targeted.

  • Protecting the American people against invasion
    • Directs agencies to take action to remove all undocumented immigrants; creates detention centers; requires identification of all “unregistered illegal aliens”; block federal funding to sanctuary cities; ensure undocumented immigrants do not receive public benefits
  • Realigning the United States refugee admissions program
    • Suspends the US refugee admission program
  • Protecting the meaning and value of American citizenship
    • Challenges birthright citizenship
  • Ending taxpayer subsidization of open borders
    • Ensure that “illegal aliens” cannot access any federally funded programs; require enhanced eligibility verification
  • Securing our borders
    • Prioritizes building of physical wall and obtaining operational control of the borders

LGBTQ+

Charitable nonprofits serving LGBTQ+ communities, and providing gender-affirming care and other services, may experience loss of federal funding, increase in demand for services, and strained relationships with government partners.

  • Initial rescissions of harmful executive orders and actions
    • Revokes previous order preventing and combating discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation
  • Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government
    • Recognizes only two sexes (male and female) and enforces all sex-protective laws under the lens of two sexes; government-issued id to only recognize two sexes; prohibits federal funding that promotes gender ideology and requires all agencies to remove all references to gender ideology

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…but they didn’t do it right

Recently it seems that when the topic of immigration / deportation / arrests comes up, a common response is “If they’d just come in the right way, they wouldn’t have anything to be afraid of.”

Quite honestly, that seems to come from a position of privilege. Most of us have never lived through the experiences of many of those who have come, seeking safety and a better life for themselves and their children.

Who are these individuals who may not have “done it right”?

Many of them are farm workers–the people who pick the fruits and vegetables we enjoy eating. They take the jobs that no one else wants, working long hours in difficult circumstances for low wages. They come…because farmers need them.

Others have come seeking asylum. Crossing the border illegally does not negate the ability to request asylum on the basis of persecution because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.

But there are others who may have crossed the borders illegally but since then have done everything immigration authorities have asked them to–and yet when reporting in for an annual meeting with ICE instead find themselves being deported without having an opportunity to talk to a lawyer or sometimes even their families.

Individuals with green cards…individuals on student visas…even U.S. citizens and children are finding themselves swept up in the fear that is being created about those who are “other.”

Even if someone hasn’t “done it the right way” to come into this country, they are still entitled to due process–to a hearing to be able to explain why they came and the potential reason(s) for granting them permission to stay.

Why is that important? Due process is a foundation of the rule of law in the United States–a right granted to anyone and everyone accused of breaking the law…regardless of how that law has been broken. If it can be removed from any one group of people, it can be removed from all.

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Happening again?

Today is Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Lest we forget, the Nazis murdered millions of people–at least 6 million Jews…also 9 million Romanis, Slavs, people of color, LGBTQ+, disabled individuals, opponents of the regime. They were murdered through extermination camps, gas chambers, mass shootings, being worked to death, and any other form of brutality they could think of.

But it’s important to also remember, that it didn’t suddenly start with the extermination camps.

It began by the government demonizing minorities. It began by blaming marginalized people for all of Germany’s financial problems. It began by imprisoning those who spoke out against the government. It began by taking control of education. It began by removing citizenship from individuals because of their religious heritage. It began by creating databases of those who were “other”–the very old, the disabled, the mentally ill. It began by fomenting violence and then finding scapegoats to blame the violence on.

Step by step, the Nazis accustomed the German people to accede to their actions…seeing each step as a reasonable response to the problems that the Nazis themselves created.

After the war…after the liberation of Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Ravensbruck and the many others…after the horrific pictures of the victims–men, women, and children…many people excused themselves by saying “I didn’t know”…even though they smelled the smoke from the crematoriums, they saw the ash fall from the sky. Others said, “I was just following orders.”

That didn’t excuse them then–and it doesn’t excuse us now.

In the United States, we can choose to look the other way. We can choose to be “good Americans” just like many of the “good Germans” who went along in order to not make waves.

But we cannot say “I didn’t know.” The news stories and video clips are out there if we look and listen.

If we say “never again” when we talk about the Holocaust…if we wonder what we would have done in 1930s Germany…then the time is now for us to act. Otherwise, our words are worth nothing.

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Due process for me…but not for thee?

There’s been a lot of talk about due process in the United States recently, triggered by the forced removal of a number of immigrants to an infamous prison in El Salvador. Most notably, there have been several comments by the current administration that those who are in the country illegally don’t deserve due process.

So just what is it? And why should anyone care?

Originally the idea of due process came from the 5th Amendment of the United States Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights. Those first ten amendments were intended to apply to the federal government.

However, after the Civil War, the 14th Amendment was ratified (in 1868), with the intention of ensuring that due process also applied to state laws as well as federal. Section 1 of that amendment says this:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

So why should we care?

“Due process” means that if an individual is in danger of being deprived of life, liberty, or property interest, they must be given notice and the opportunity for a hearing before an impartial tribunal. This includes “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” as well as “any person within its jurisdiction.” while that specific language is in reference to states, the courts have held that case law relevant to the 14th Amendment also applies to the 5th.

So…

According to the Constitution, due process applies to any person within the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States. It doesn’t matter if you were born here…if you are a green card holder…if you are on a student visa…if you are a naturalized citizen…if you crossed the border illegally. If you live here, you are within the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States.

If you are a law-abiding citizen…if you have been arrested for drunk driving…if you killed someone…if you are an undocumented immigrant…you still have the right to due process.

It’s not a pick-and-choose amendment. It’s an all-or-nothing one. If it’s not due process for all, then it’s due process for none.

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The day after…

It’s the day after Easter. So now what?

I’ve been thinking about that question for a while…pondering how Jesus’ followers answered it.

One might have thought that they would be excited and jumping at the chance to share the news that the crucifixion wasn’t the end after all. But that doesn’t seem to have been what happened.

According to the biblical story, the news of the resurrection was a story of how women can easily be dismissed as “hysterical” and their voices unheard or not believed. The first witnesses were the women who had stayed with Jesus at the cross while the men hid. They had gone to the tomb to finish preparing his body properly for burial…and, according to the story…were given the message that Jesus was among the living.

When they shared the news with the male apostles, the men didn’t believe them, thinking it an “idle tale.” They had to go to see for themselves.

And then what? They still didn’t get it. He had promised them power to share the good news…to teach as he had taught…to heal as he had. But accounts differ as to how they responded.

One of the writers says that they basically went back to life as it had been…until they had another experience with the risen Jesus. And then they truly believed and shared.

I wonder how I would have responded then. Would I have been one of the women telling the story? And what would I have done if my story was ignored and called an “idle tale”? Would I have been angry with the men? Would I have gone back to life as it was? or would I have continued to share what I truly believed?

Today is the day after. What will I do with my story?