FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Laura Trask
Director, Development & Communications
[email protected]
Washington, D.C. (July 29, 2025) – Yesterday, the Council of the District of Columbia cast its final vote on the city’s budget for fiscal year 2026 (FY2026). The approved budget cuts funding for the D.C. Healthcare Alliance Program (Alliance), meaning that 28,000 immigrants and low-income residents will lose the healthcare they depend on by 2027.
“It’s difficult to overstate the devastating impact these cuts will have on Ayuda’s clients and other immigrant community members whose only medical coverage option is the Alliance,” said Sandra Benavente, Ayuda’s advocacy manager. “On an individual level, we will see more people forced to choose between treating illnesses and injuries or paying for food or rent – an impossible choice that no one should ever have to make. On a District-wide level, we will see more chronic illnesses left untreated, emergency room visits, unemployment, and economic instability.”
This devastating cut comes on the heels of the federal reconciliation bill that strips Medicaid eligibility from immigrant survivors of crime. As a result, many more immigrants will become ineligible for any kind of healthcare coverage in a matter of months. Under the Alliance phase-out plan, adults at or over the age of 26 will become ineligible to enroll or re-enroll in the program starting October 1, 2025. This will impact approximately 4,300 residents and have long-lasting, reverberating effects on individuals, families, and the entire District.
Budgets are moral documents, and a budget that kicks thousands of people off lifesaving healthcare is not only harmful, it is unjust. We are deeply disappointed in Chairman Mendelson and Councilmembers for failing to restore funding for this critical program.
We join our advocacy partners in calling for the Council to prioritize reversing cuts to the Alliance during the supplemental budget process this fall.
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About Ayuda:
Ayuda provides direct legal, social, and language access services to low-income immigrants in Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Since 1973, Ayuda has served more than 150,000 immigrants throughout the region. Ayuda is the only nonprofit service provider in the area that provides a wide range of immigration and family law assistance, social services, and language access support for all immigrants – including women, men, and children – from anywhere in the world. Visit www.ayuda.com to learn more.
