Nonprofit that offers legal services to immigrants celebrates 10 years and prepares for a second Trump administration

By Cathy Cook, Albuquerque Journal

Miles Tokunow, photographed at his office in Albuquerque on Friday, is the executive director of Santa Fe Dreamers Project. (Eddie Moore / Journal)

The Santa Fe Dreamers Project will celebrate 10 years of helping immigrants with legal representation in December. The nonprofit is also gearing up for a second Donald Trump presidency.

Santa Fe Dreamers Project serves approximately 1,000 to 1,500 clients in a year.

“We will continue to bring our families together and make sure that people do have opportunities,” said Executive Director Miles Tokunow. “And as a legal organization, what we’re committed to doing is continuing to offer legal representation that is high quality and also creative.”

Tokunow said he would be more worried by Trump’s reelection in other parts of the country and is heartened by local and state political leaders such as Democrat Cindy Nava. She was just elected to the Legislature, making her one of the first former DACA recipients to be elected into public office.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program gives temporary protection from deportation to some undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. During his first term, Trump’s administration attempted to end DACA and successfully stopped new DACA applications.

Trump’s campaign promises this year included mass deportations, and his at times vitriolic rhetoric often focused on immigrants coming into the U.S. at the southern border with Mexico.

“There becomes this focus on, and then kind of blaming, the folks on the border,” Tokunow said. “I’m just thinking about this larger context of why there could be political turmoil in folks who are fleeing their home countries, thinking about the vast changes in climate and natural disasters that then also leads to these things. ... Immigration shouldn’t and can’t be siloed as an issue, right? In reality, it is connected to all of these other different issue areas.”

Given Trump’s campaign promises, Tokunow is expecting the need for legal assistance to increase. That need was already greater than the legal resources available.

“We’ve always had waitlists, and we work as fast and as much as we can, and that is across nonprofits and in the private bar. And so yes, we are gearing up and continuing to think about creative solutions for relief,” Tokunow said.

In the next 10 years, the nonprofit is planning to expand its humanitarian work. The organization received a $750,000 three-year grant in October from the Office of Violence Against Women to help secure visas for people who are trying to escape gender-based violence.

Santa Fe Dreamers Project will also focus on advocating for more “immigrant forward” policies and legislation at local, state and national levels.

“As someone who comes from community organizing, it’s really important to me to be in this role as a legal organization to support the work of having our immigrant community have the safety to fight like hell for the things that they deserve and need and want,” Tokunow said.