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July marks Disability Pride Month, a time to celebrate the achievements, resilience, and ongoing struggles of people with disabilities across the Americas. For the Latino immigrant community that Alianza Americas serves, this month holds special significance as we recognize the intersection of disability rights, immigrant rights, and racial justice in our ongoing fight for dignity and equity.
Today's disability community confronts unprecedented threats to the programs and services that enable independent living and full participation in society. The Trump administration's policies have created a climate of fear and uncertainty, with dramatic cuts to Medicaid threatening healthcare access for millions of disabled people. The rhetoric emanating from the highest levels of government has emboldened discriminatory attitudes and policies that treat disabled lives as less valuable.
Our community faces the specter of harmful "work requirements" for Medicaid—policies that are, in reality, bureaucratic barriers designed to deny care rather than promote employment. The threat of having to re-certify disability status every six months creates additional stress and administrative burdens for people already navigating complex systems. Cuts to home and community-based services, transportation assistance, and workplace accommodations threaten the independence that disabled people have fought decades to achieve.
These attacks are not new. Throughout history, disabled people—particularly those who are immigrants, people of color, or from low-income communities—have faced systemic exclusion, institutionalization, and discrimination. But what has also persisted is our community's remarkable capacity for resistance, mutual aid, and collective action.
The Trump administration continues to enforce arbitrary and inhumane immigration policies that disproportionately harm Latino immigrants and individuals with disabilities. People with disabilities who are detained or deported face especially dire consequences, including neglect of medical needs, denial of access to assistive devices, and deteriorating mental and physical health due to overcrowded and understaffed detention facilities. The federal government has a legal and moral obligation to ensure that minimum standards are upheld to protect the health and well-being of all individuals in its custody.
Beyond unjust arrests and deportations, this administration is also stripping protection from millions of immigrants, including those with Temporary Protected Status (TPS), humanitarian parole, and other forms of temporary relief. As a result, thousands are losing work authorization and being dismissed from jobs, many of them in the care sector, where they provide essential support to older adults and people with disabilities. The care and health sectors are already facing a severe workforce shortage, and these policies are deepening the crisis. This moment underscores the urgent need to recognize the interconnectedness of immigration policy, disability justice, and the right to dignified care. Ignoring this intersection not only threatens lives—it undermines the systems that allow communities to thrive.
In Chicago, Alianza Americas has found powerful allies in organizations like Access Living, whose "Cambiando Vidas" program specifically serves Latino immigrants with disabilities. This collaboration recognizes that disability justice cannot be separated from immigrant rights—that the fight for accessible communities must include pathways to citizenship, protection from deportation, and services that meet the cultural and linguistic needs of our diverse communities.
Similarly, our partnership with Living Hope Wheelchair Association in Houston demonstrates how Latino leadership within disability organizations creates space for our community's unique experiences and needs. These organizations understand that disability affects every community, and that our responses must be rooted in the cultural strengths and networks that have always sustained us.
The achievements of the disability rights movement over the past decades have been remarkable. The Americans with Disabilities Act opened doors that had been closed for generations. The independent living movement has enabled countless people with disabilities to live in their own communities rather than institutions. Advocacy organizations have built political power and changed public consciousness about disability. The Disability Rights movement has also transformed narratives on care, collective liberation, and we can build a more inclusive, accessible, and equitable way of life for all.
Within Latino immigrant communities, we see growing recognition that disability justice, racial justice and immigrant justice are inseparable. Families who have traditionally faced stigma around disability are finding voice and advocacy skills through organizations that honor both their cultural identity and their disability experience. Latino activists with disabilities are bringing intersectional analysis to their organizing, understanding that liberation must include all members of our community. In speaking with some we hear many important lessons.
Jaime V. explained the importance of solidarity with this though: "If we all united as organizations, as people, Latino people, African American people, people from everywhere, If we were all united, then this country, beautiful and lovely as it is, would be still more wonderful."
Miguel C. shared his perspective similarly as related to stigma and understanding: "We've seen some changes. But the thing is, what I've seen most in our Latino community is that people didn't give [disability] importance and dignity. They tend to say, if there's a person with disability in a Hispanic or Latino family, what they do is isolate them from society. [But we have achieved] that we are taken into account. That we be included. Because now yes, we are... included in various campaigns, [like] migrant campaigns with various organizations, now people talk about persons with disabilities [and] the disability community is taken into account."
This Disability Pride Month, we celebrate not just the progress made, but the ongoing work of building inclusive communities where every person can thrive. The mutual aid networks, advocacy organizations, and solidarity movements that sustain our communities today are testaments to the power of collective action and shared struggle.
The path forward requires continued partnership between immigrant rights and disability rights organizations, recognition of the unique challenges faced by immigrants with disabilities, and commitment to fighting policies that devalue any member of our community. Together, we build the world we need—one where pride in our identities and determination for justice creates lasting change.
