The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) laid off 159 employees last week, according to a filing with the Texas Workforce Commission. This follows the 61 layoffs the nonprofit announced in February, bringing its total layoffs to more than 200 over the last two months.

In a statement, RAICES said the layoffs are the result of the loss of federal funding for legal representation of unaccompanied children.

The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown recently extended to the freezing of federal funds utilized to help immigrants.

“The degree by which we are targeted was made clear on March 21 when RAICES learned of a Notice of Partial Termination for the Government’s Convenience, impacting our Unaccompanied Children’s Services, including legal screenings and representation,” said RAICES CEO Dolores Schroeder in a recent letter to employees and friends of RAICES.

The San Antonio-based nonprofit, founded in 1986, has offered low-cost legal services to immigrants, including asylum seekers, victims of crime and people at risk of deportation.

Early this year, San Antonio was identified as one of the first places where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to arrest and deport people living in the country without legal status — an effort that began in late January.

RAICES works to protect the rights of immigrant communities, especially those who are vulnerable or facing the threat of separation from their families. Last week, its attorneys helped release five families from an immigration detention facility in Karnes, the organization said in a statement.

According to the Texas Workforce Commission’s latest WARN listing, RAICES employees were given notice of layoffs on April 2.

Employers with 100 or more full-time employees are required to submit a notice to the state under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act of 1988. Those layoffs are listed online by the commission.

In a letter sent to the state by RAICES, the organization directly blames the loss of federal funding. Laid-off positions, according to the letter, include 36 senior legal assistants, 36 legal assistants, 23 staff attorneys, 19 supervising attorneys, 11 senior staff attorneys, 10 children’s program case managers, the director of IT and the operations support manager.

As agreed upon in a 2024 bargaining agreement with the employees’ union, employees laid off get a 60-day notice, up to a seven-week severance depending on tenure, paid time off payouts of up to 160 hours and two months of paid health care benefits.

RAICES said it would continue legal representation through the end of September and would help transfer other clients to attorneys in Texas.

Last month, the Trump administration asked local governments and nonprofit organizations that received federal grants to identify immigrants they have housed, suggesting in a letter that they may have violated human smuggling laws.

The City of San Antonio was among the entities that received a noncompliance letter from the Federal Emergency Management Administration, stating, “DHS/FEMA is temporarily withholding payments to your organization… The [U.S. Department of Homeland Security] has significant concerns that Shelter and Services Program funding is going to entities engaged in or facilitating illegal activities.”

The letter stated that the department is concerned that the entities receiving payment under the program may be “guilty of encouraging or inducing an immigrant to come to the United States,” and ordered the city to send all documents associated with the migrants aided at the city’s now-defunct Migrant Resource Center within 30 days.

According to the city, San Antonio has spent $35.9 million of the $47.2 million federal grant for migrant aid, with $22.5 million reimbursed by FEMA and $13.2 million pending. FEMA is requiring the city and its grant-receiving organizations to sign affidavits confirming no knowledge of criminal activity.

Catholic Charities of San Antonio, which provides resources to newly arrived immigrants with legal status, received the same letter. The nonprofit said last month it is still figuring out how to provide the requested information on so many clients.

More than 10,000 refugees in San Antonio who were receiving some level of service from Catholic Charities will be affected by the freeze, said City Manager Erik Walsh. That includes refugee families living in 19 local multi-family properties, which will no longer receive Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) funds. 

RAICES said the loss of funding is also forcing a scale-down in workforce capacity.

“It creates an 8-figure funding gap that cannot be reasonably and sustainably replaced in full by other sources in a country where less than 1% of total philanthropic investments annually are directed toward immigration,” said Schroeder in the statement.

RAICES is involved in broader efforts to advocate for policy changes to improve the treatment of immigrants and refugees in the United States. Over the years, the organization has become one of the largest immigrant advocacy groups in Texas, especially noted for its work on behalf of unaccompanied minors and detained immigrants.

“We will continue to leverage RAICES’ presence in the detention centers to witness and combat the systemic oppression of people in government custody while defending their right to access just pathways to safety in courtrooms, the halls of Congress, and with our community members across the country fighting to remain in the country they call home,” Schroeder wrote.