Protecting Immigrant and Migrant Rights
Where We Work
We make grants to organizations in the United States and Mexico and Central America that focus on correcting dysfunction in immigration systems and policies that result in the violation of the human rights of migrants and immigrants.
Our U.S. work is nationwide with some focus on the U.S.-Mexico border region and "gateway" communities in North Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi, for example, where there is little infrastructure to support new arrivals and anti-immigrant sentiment may be high.
Our Mexico City office concentrates on the country's northern border with the United States and its southern border with Central America.
What We Fund
The initiative supports the promotion of sound public policy relating to immigrants at the federal, state and local levels, through:
- Strategic communications that educate and move public opinion to support reform of immigration systems
- Coalition building across community and ethnic lines
- Developing mechanisms for local and grassroots organizations to advance the federal debate
- Legal efforts that challenge anti-immigrant provisions and defend immigrant-friendly ones
Our grant making related to immigration enforcement focuses on the following:
- Increasing legal resources to challenge and respond to harsh federal enforcement measures, such as protecting due process and habeas rights, and providing post-raid representation
- Strengthening advocacy and legal work related to state and local enforcement of immigration laws
- Addressing detention-related issues that include monitoring federal proposals to expand detention capacity, challenging mandatory detention, and improving detention conditions
- Promoting advocacy and legal support for enforcement issues specific to the Mexico-U.S. border
- Supporting particularly vulnerable populations—including immigrants with criminal convictions, HIV-positive immigrants, undocumented workers and immigrant women—that face greater risk of negative attacks and for which funding sources and political will are more difficult to secure
Other selection priorities focus on strengthening immigrant rights organizations—particularly migrant- and immigrant-led groups—to conduct direct advocacy and develop immigrant leadership, as well as promoting regional, national and trans-border coalitions to work strategically on shared advocacy goals.
Additional Selection Criteria
We do not support work on refugee issues.
To Apply for a Grant
Follow these steps:
- Review the Initiative(s) most relevant to your work.
- Read our Grant Application Guide, which describes our grant-making process.
- If you determine that your work aligns with our priorities, submit a Grant Inquiry. (While we welcome submissions, please keep in mind that our funds are limited in relation to the large number of worthwhile inquiries we receive. In a typical year, less than 1 percent of unsolicited inquiries result in a grant.)
Please Note:
It is important that you use our grant inquiry form—and refrain from contacting program officers directly. Given the volume of inquiries we receive, this allows us to log, track and respond quickly to your application.
Fellowships
The vast majority of foundation grants go to organizations. We provide a very limited number of fellowship opportunities for individuals through the Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowships Program, which aims to diversify the faculties of American colleges and universities.
The foundation does not have any other active fellowship opportunities at this time.
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