The real question tonight should have been: what is the State of the People? Washington’s policies don’t stop at our borders, they shape labor, migration, security, and family stability across the Americas. People feel the consequences every day: lives are harder, futures more unstable, and inequality more visible than any politician admits. The authoritarian actions we see now didn’t appear overnight. They are the product of decades of laws, systems, and anti-immigrant politics that concentrated power, weakened oversight, and prioritized punishment and profit over people, often on the backs of Black, Immigrant, and Indigenous communities. From sweeping immigration statutes to national security expansions and economic policies favoring corporations, the groundwork for today’s drift was laid long ago, and now those systems are aggressively enforced, with consequences felt far beyond U.S. borders.
Today, the state of the People is deeply concerning for anyone that does not fit a white and wealthy image. Working families, elders, students, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and immigrant communities are facing heightened instability while our healthcare, education, and social support systems remain strained and under-resourced. At the same time, racial and economic inequities continue to deepen, revealing a system that has too often placed political expediency and corporate profit above human dignity.
Families across the country are working harder while feeling less secure, less protected, and increasingly excluded from the very systems that sustain their labor. Immigrants who have given the prime years of their lives to this country are being separated from their families and treated as disposable. We cannot let anyone, including the President of the United States, dictate how people should feel about their own lived realities. Only the parent working three jobs to keep the lights on, the migrant worker exploited for their labor, the elderly neighbor struggling to access healthcare, the student missing school out of fear that a loved one may not come home, only they can speak to the weight of this moment.
Their exhaustion is real. Their fear is real. Their frustration and anger are real. And so is their dignity. The state of our nation cannot be measured solely by stock markets or political speeches; it must be measured by whether families feel safe, whether workers are respected, whether elders can age with security, and whether children can dream without fear. If people feel unseen, unheard, and unprotected, then that is the true state of our country, and it demands accountability, compassion, and action.
The real issues have never been immigrants or legality; they stem from the persistent lack of political will to build an economic and social framework that recognizes the full rights and humanity of all people. Addressing the uncertainty people in the United States face requires structural change: creating a fair tax system where the ultra-wealthy and corporations pay their fair share, righting our historical wrongs by addressing the root causes that force people to flee their homes abroad, repealing laws like the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) that enable the harmful enforcement practices we see today, transforming our care systems to ensure access regardless of income or background, and strengthening worker protections so that all people can earn a true living wage and live with dignity.
These are not abstract policy debates, they are about whether parents can sleep at night without fear, whether elders can retire with security after a lifetime of work, whether young people can imagine a future in which they belong. They are about whether we will continue to accept systems that exploit people across borders or choose to build ones that stop the problem at the root. People are not asking for special treatment; they are asking for fairness, stability, and the chance to live with dignity in the places they call home. A truly just future cannot be confined to one nation alone. When we lead with collective care, equity, and transnational solidarity, we can move beyond survival and build a hemisphere where communities—not corporations or unchecked power—shape the conditions of their lives.
