What is Project 2025?In 2022, conservative think tank Heritage Foundation published “2025: Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” a nearly 900-page document offering a host of radical policy recommendations. It is often described as a blueprint for a future administration and it spells out a clear agenda that is anti-worker, anti-middle class, anti-immigrant and anti-community. Project 2025 is a threat to democracy and to the AAPI community. Many of the authors of the document have close ties to or were a part of the former Trump Administration. Here are just some reasons Project 2025 is bad for our communities:
Attacks Workers' Rights and ProtectionsEnds Public Sector Unions
Project 2025 is very clear: union representation of government workers is “incompatible with democracy” and asks Congress to make public sector unions illegal (Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, pg. 82). These unions are often at the forefront of advocating for standards and quality in education and public service. By silencing their voices, communities, children and families will pay the price. Makes It Illegal for Employers to Voluntarily Recognize Unions Forming a union is not easy – current law permits employers to campaign against workers in a union election. That is why many workers will try to form their union by asking their employer to voluntarily recognize their union without an election. Project 2025 wants to take that option away and force workers to go through a long election period where employers can hire union busters to influence the outcome (Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, pg. 603). By making the path to organize harder, Project 2025 weakens workers and their ability to improve their lives through collective bargaining. Eliminates the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program Public sector jobs often pay less than comparable jobs in the private sectors. That is why we created a program that provides student loan forgiveness for government and not-for-profit workers to encourage them to enter public service. The Project 2025 will terminate these programs (Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, pg. 386). Lets States Gut National Overtime and Minimum Wage Laws and Lets States Ban Labor Unions Project 2025 outlines a plan for legislation that would let states and local governments seek waivers from federal labor laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which establish national minimum wage and overtime laws, and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which protects the rights of private sector workers to join unions (Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, pg. 605). This will result in a patchwork of labor standards that will hurt workers as companies race to the bottom to find the weakest standards offered by states. |
Weakens Public Education and Attacks TeachersEliminates the Department of Education and Destroys Public Education
The Project 2025 agenda would eliminate the Department of Education and divert those taxpayer dollars into private schools via more school vouchers (Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, pg. 322). This is a cynical attempt to weaken public education and increase inequities between communities. Public schools – which serve all students – meet rigorous standards that are not equally applied to private schools. Eliminates Head Start Since 1965, Head Start has helped more than 38 million children from low-income families receive early learning, health, nutrition and family support services to succeed when they reach kindergarten. Preschool programs like Head Start are shown to pay off at a rate of 13% per year. The Project 2025 agenda calls for eliminating the program entirely (Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, pg. 482). Eliminates Universal Free School Meals Programs Research has shown that participating in school nutrition programs can make a big difference in student attendance, academics and overall success, especially for low-income students. Following the pandemic, eight states have continued offering all public school students free school meals, regardless of household income. Reducing the stigma around eating free meals and removing the burdensome income eligibility paperwork can help millions of hungry children succeed in school. What’s more—research has repeatedly shown that every dollar invested in school nutrition programs is returned back to the community served, and then some. Project 2025 instructs the USDA to work with lawmakers to end universal free school meal programs, including summer meal programs (Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, pg. 303). Eliminates Public Student Loans The Project 2025 agenda states that “the new Administration should consider privatizing all [student loan] lending programs, including subsidized, unsubsidized, and PLUS loans (both Grad and Parent)” (Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, pg. 354). Currently, 91% of all student loan debt is from public student loans. This would allow big Wall Street banks to jack up student loan interest rates and make billions of dollars in profits each year off the backs of working families. Here is what the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers have to say about Project 2025 and public education. Endangers Asian American Pacific Islander CommunitiesFuel anti-Asian scapegoating by wrongly holding accountable Asian Americans and immigrants for the actions of a foreign government. Stop AAPI Hate points out that there are multiple elements of Project 2025 designed to hurt Asians and Asian Americans because of the actions of a foreign government. These include revival of the China Initiative which has targeted and prosecuted American researchers and scientists, 90% of whom were Chinese American scientists. Project 2025 also calls for discontinuing visas to Chinese students and researchers, hurting research and science innovation. Makes It Easier for Employers to Discriminate Based on Race and Gender “Disparate impact” has been an important tool to prove discrimination based on how it affects a group. The Project 2025 transition playbook calls for eliminating “disparate impact” as a way of measuring racial discrimination under Title VII and other laws (Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, pg. 583).Without this tool, it will be harder to prove that employers and corporations are discriminating based on race and gender in employment, housing, and many other areas. Eliminates Reproductive and Family Planning Freedom Nationwide The Project 2025 agenda will expand upon the Dobbs decision to rob women and families of the freedom to make their own health care decisions and make it more difficult to receive health care, including reproductive care. It will also prohibit federal agencies from promoting other health care services, including sex education, in-vitro fertilization (IVF), and gender-affirming care (Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, pg. 429). Here is what Stop AAPI Hate has to say about Project 2025 and AAPI communities. Creates Great Uncertainty in Our Communities About ImmigrationCreates a Unit to Strip Citizenship from Naturalized Immigrants
Under current law, even minor legal infractions can prevent immigrants from becoming naturalized citizens and put them at risk of deportation—immigrants are not fully protected until they take the important step to naturalize as U.S. citizens. The Project 2025, however, proposes that even naturalized citizens can have their citizenship stripped away and be deported a newly created denaturalization unit which would put every U.S. citizen who was not born in our country at perpetual risk of removal, creating a separate and unequal set of consequences in our legal system (Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, pg. 143). Vastly Expands Powers of ICE to detain people anywhere in the US Project 2025 agenda would call for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to arrest, detain and deport people they suspect to be immigrants anywhere in the country—without due process and without a warrant, whenever possible—encouraging racial profiling and instilling fear in our communities (Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, pg. 142). It also would call for ICE to “make full use of existing Expedited Removal (ER) authorities” to deport people without a hearing before an immigration judge. Ends Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Hundreds of Thousands of Workers Since 1990, the United States has granted permission for people from counties embroiled in ongoing armed conflicts and political violence or who are survivors of catastrophic natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes to live and work in the United States through a form of humanitarian relief called temporary protected status (TPS). The Project 2025 would call for repealing TPS entirely. Ending TPS would separate working families, diminish our workforce in key industries and have a devastating effect on the economy (Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, pg. 145). |