Defending Our Neighbors Fund

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.

We all deserve to be treated fairly and with dignity. Yet every day, immigrant families are forced to navigate a complex and punishing immigration system alone, without access to legal 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 of our taxpayer dollars to dramatically increase enforcement in our cities, all while slashing funding for legal service organizations who provide critical support for immigrants and make sure they have access to a lawyer. The Defending Our Neighbors Fund is a rapid-response effort to meet this urgent need for legal representation head-on, working to 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 in this moment, the Defending Our Neighbors Fund is quickly deploying high-impact grants to trusted organizations providing legal and, when possible, bond assistance to communities in need, this includes organizations that are:

• Serving communities with large immigrant populations
• Serving communities in legal deserts, and
• Serving communities near some of the country’s most active immigration detention and processing centers

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

Supported by United We Dream and the ACLU, the Defending Our Neighbors Fund is hosted by Abundant Futures Fund (a fiscally sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors), and aims to raise and deploy $30 million to grassroots organizations to meet this crisis with action and care.

We, the people, will power this movement with small dollar contributions. Your donation supports trusted organizations providing legal representation 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.