Last week, as our team gathered in the Bay Area—Black and Brown, trans and queer, immigrant and disabled—we were reminded that the policies debated in courts and chambers are felt most viscerally in our bodies, our families, and our lives. In California, a state simultaneously criminalizing trans youth and upholding sanctuary protections, we held space to reflect and strategize together. During that time, we received news of the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. CASA.
This ruling severely limits the ability of federal judges to block harmful policies—like Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship—on a nationwide scale. The Court’s decision narrows a crucial legal tool that has historically protected entire communities from unconstitutional harm. Now, a policy that threatens the rights of children born on U.S. soil can be blocked in one state, and still take effect in another.
While this ruling may seem procedural, its impact is deeply felt in the communities Borealis supports—particularly immigrant families and grassroots organizers whose rights often depend on where they live and what protections exist on the state level. It creates a fragmented legal landscape, where access to safety and rights varies by geography, and impacts the same communities already carrying the weight of systemic neglect, criminalization, and displacement.
As injunctions become fractured and protections vary by geography, we are doubling down on our commitments and funding across states, across movements, and across identities—especially for immigrant, trans, femme, gender nonconforming, and BIPOC communities whose rights are always first to be politicized and last to be protected.
And yet—our movements have always known that courts alone would not liberate us.
Our history also shows us who will lead us forward. Organizers, cultural workers, litigators, healers, and movement architects who have never relied on the courts alone to affirm our humanity.
Borealis Philanthropy exists to fund and fortify the people and organizations who defend their communities not only through litigation, but through organizing, cultural resistance, mutual aid, and advocacy.
We are committed to funding legal defense and public education, to resourcing state-level advocacy and transnational solidarity, and to backing the leaders who are building safety where systems fail.
To our grantee partners: we see you. We stand with you. And we are committed to ensuring that your safety, leadership, and solutions are resourced in this moment—and beyond it.
To our philanthropic peers: this is a time for principled clarity and action. It is a time for courage. It is a time to align our strategies with the frontline demands of those who saw this coming—and have long been building alternatives.
We know this moment. We’ve lived it before. And still, we rise—not because we are unafraid—but because we understand that justice, safety, and belonging are not given. They are made and defended together. We will continue to fund that future—with urgency, clarity, and collective resolve.