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FORWARD TOGETHER:

The Black Policy Playbook For An Equitable America The 2026 Addendum

Produced by:

03 Preface 04 Overview 08 Voting Rights & Civic Engagement 26

Economic Opportunity and Advancement

38 Workforce Table of Contents

46 Education 56 Healthcare 64 Criminal Legal System 80 Technology and Telecommunicaions 88 Immigration 97

Conclusion

About the Organizations Producing this Report

99 Acknowledgements

Preface Forward Together: The Black Policy Playbook for an Equitable America was created in 2025 to provide evidence-based policy recommendations for advancing equity and opportunity for Black Americans. Developed by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the Playbook brought together research, policy expertise, and the perspectives of organizations committed to strengthening Black communities across the United States. Its purpose was—and remains—to provide a resource for policymakers to collaborate with researchers, advocates, and community organizations in developing solutions that promote equity and justice. Since the Playbook’s release in 2025, the policy landscape has changed substantially. Some of the policies and investments that offered opportunities to reduce longstanding disparities have been weakened, reversed, or placed at risk, while new laws, executive actions, court decisions, and state policies have created new challenges. In addition, emerging issues—including the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence, changes in the digital economy, new threats to voting access, the growing consequences of immigration enforcement, and the continuing effects of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—have made clear that the work of advancing equity must continually evolve. The disparities documented in the original Playbook have not disappeared; in many cases, they have been intensified by these changes. This addendum is the product of that recognition. We are grateful to the leading civil rights and policy organizations that contributed their expertise to this update and helped identify where the original agenda must be strengthened, revised, or expanded. Together, these organizations have examined what has changed since the Playbook’s publication and what those changes mean for Black communities today. Their contributions demonstrate both the urgency of this moment and the continued importance of collective action. The recommendations that follow are not intended to replace the original Playbook. Rather, they build upon it, identifying new and emerging policy priorities in response to a rapidly changing environment. As in the original report, our guiding premise remains true: advancing equity for Black Americans strengthens our democracy, our economy, and our nation as a whole. We hope this addendum will serve as both a resource and a call to action for policymakers, advocates, and communities working toward an America in which every person has an equal opportunity to live with dignity, security, and full participation in civic and economic life.

Overview When the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies released The Black Policy Playbook in 2025, the nation was already at a pivotal moment. The original Playbook documented persistent racial disparities in voting rights and civic participation, economic opportunity, workforce outcomes, education, healthcare, the criminal legal system, and technology and telecommunications. We wrote it with the understanding that progress was neither inevitable nor permanent and the knowledge that policy choices could preserve or deepen longstanding barriers to racial equality. The year since the Playbook’s release has demonstrated the importance of that warning. The second Trump administration has brought a sharp shift in federal policy, threatening many of the gains and opportunities identified in the original agenda. Through executive orders, administrative actions, and changes in federal funding and enforcement, the Trump-Vance administration has weakened civil rights protections, reduced federal investments, disrupted the public workforce, and placed programs designed to expand economic and educational opportunity at risk. In particular, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act has reshaped healthcare, tax policy, education, and workforce policy, creating new burdens for many Black families while reducing or eliminating investments that could have supported economic mobility. Against this backdrop, changes to voting administration and redistricting, including the Supreme Court’s April 2026 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, have raised new concerns about Black political representation.

These developments do not mean that progress has stopped. The original Playbook was also grounded in the belief that public policy can help dismantle longstanding barriers to racial equality—a belief that continues to guide this addendum. Across the country, states, local governments, courts, advocates, and community organizations continue to defend civil rights, develop new protections, and pursue innovative approaches to longstanding challenges. State-level fair housing protections, efforts to protect voting access, community-based approaches to public safety, and new strategies for addressing digital inequity demonstrate that meaningful action remains possible even amid federal retrenchment. In some instances, litigation has preserved programs or protections that federal policymakers sought to eliminate. These developments reinforce a central lesson of the original Playbook: policy change can occur at multiple levels, and the struggle for equity requires sustained engagement across all of them. Since the Playbook’s release, the policy landscape has also become more complex. The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies is creating new opportunities for Black Americans while threatening to reproduce discrimination in employment, housing, lending, healthcare, policing, immigration enforcement, and elections. AI infrastructure itself is reshaping Black communities, including through the construction of data centers that can place new demands on electricity, water, and other public resources. Meanwhile, digital access and affordability remain essential to participation in education, healthcare, employment, and civic life. The experiences of Black Americans cannot be understood through a single lens. This addendum gives greater attention to the experiences of Black LGBTQ+/SameGender-Loving (SGL) communities, whose encounters with education, healthcare, employment, voting, technology, and the criminal legal system can be shaped simultaneously by race, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and economic status. It also expands the Playbook’s scope to include immigration, recognizing that immigration policy has profound consequences for Black communities, civic participation, and economic security. Thus, the addendum now covers eight key policy areas for advancing Black communities: • • • • • • • •

Voting Rights and Civic Engagement Economic Opportunity and Advancement Workforce Education Healthcare Criminal Legal System Reform Technology and Telecommunications Policies Immigration

At the heart of this addendum are three central questions: What has changed? What do those changes mean for Black people? And what can policymakers do to advance equity and improve outcomes for Black communities? Each updated section builds on the original Playbook by analyzing major developments since its publication; presenting new, updated, or previously overlooked policy priorities; and offering relevant resources that provide additional information and insights into each issue area. The updates address both federal and state policy, emerging data and trends, and areas where the original agenda must be strengthened or expanded. Across these areas, the updates paint the picture of a landscape defined by both significant challenges and important opportunities. They document threats to voting access and political representation; changes to housing, entrepreneurship, taxation, and wealth-building policy; attacks on Black workers and the public institutions that employ them; new barriers to higher education and healthcare; continued racial disparities in policing, incarceration, and the death penalty; and the growing use of surveillance and artificial intelligence in systems that affect everyday life. They also highlight opportunities to protect and expand broadband access, reimagine public safety, strengthen community-based economic development, preserve educational opportunity, and build more equitable systems of technology and healthcare.

As with the original Playbook, the goal of this addendum is not to provide full coverage of every issue that is important to Black equality, but rather to focus on key areas where new developments, emerging challenges, or gaps in the original agenda warrant additional attention. The original Playbook remains an important resource for understanding the broader policy landscape and the priorities necessary to advance equity for Black Americans. This addendum is intended to complement that work and should be read alongside the original publication. Indeed, the connection between documents is highlighted throughout the addendum in the form of clear references to the first Playbook as well as QR codes that provide a direct route to the original policy agenda. Some priorities call for restoring policies or investments that have been weakened or eliminated. Others respond to new developments that were not foreseeable when the original Playbook was written. Still others recognize opportunities at the state and local levels where policymakers and communities can continue advancing equity. The moment is once again pivotal. The challenges facing Black communities are significant. That is why this addendum reflects the collective expertise and perspectives of leading civil rights and policy organizations that came together to assess the landscape and identify the areas where continued action is needed. Together, we believe in the capacity of policymakers— with the help of civil rights organizations, researchers, advocates, and communities—to meet this moment with bold, effective action. The original Playbook was grounded in the belief that progress is possible when evidence, policy, and collective action come together. This addendum carries that work forward, providing an updated roadmap for protecting the gains that have been made, confronting new and intensified barriers, and continuing to build an America where Black Americans, and, ultimately, all Americans, have an equal opportunity to thrive.

Voting Rights and Civic Engagement 2025 Playbook Issue Areas:

2026 Playbook Addendum Issue Areas:

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• • • • •

Impact of Strict Voter ID Laws and Voter Roll Purges Impact of Limited Early Voting and Vote-By-Mail Options and Reduced Access to Polling Places Impact of Voter Intimidation Practices Impact of Disinformation Campaigns Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws Impact of Racial Gerrymandering

• • • • • •

Louisiana v. Callais and Black Political Representation – NEW Federal Collection of Voter Data and Election Records – NEW New ID and Passport Policies Affecting Black LGBTQ+ Voters – NEW Postal Service Changes and Vote-byMail Access – UPDATE Federal Law Enforcement and Voter Intimidation – UPDATE Workplace Voter Intimidation – UPDATE Impact of Disinformation Campaigns – UPDATE

•

Statewide Races and Voter Morale – NEW

Since the release of the Black Policy Playbook, the voting rights landscape has continued to evolve, creating new challenges and opportunities for advancing civic participation and protecting democratic representation. At the center of these new challenges is the 2026 Louisiana v. Callais decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which limited the circumstances under which race can be considered in drawing congressional districts and is projected to have significant, deleterious effects on Black political representation. Each of the policy issues outlined in the original Playbook remain significant challenges around voting rights and civic engagement. This addendum expands the original policy agenda to address emerging issues that have become increasingly central to the ability of Black communities to access the ballot and exercise political power. These include the impact of Callais on voting rights protections and redistricting, new challenges related to voter data privacy and election administration, the use of technology and disinformation to influence elections, barriers that disproportionately affect Black LGBTQ+/SameGender Loving (SGL) voters, and state-level races. As federal and state policies reshape how elections are administered and protected, advancing civic engagement requires ensuring that voting systems are accessible, secure, transparent, and responsive to the communities they serve.

Voting Rights and Civic Engagement

Louisiana v. Callais and Black Political Representation The Supreme Court’s April 29, 2026 decision in Louisiana v. Callais has created a new and urgent threat to Black political representation. In that case, the Court struck down Louisiana’s congressional map that created a second majority-Black district, significantly narrowing Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and weakening one of the most important tools Black voters have used to challenge racial vote dilution. When read alongside the Court’s recent decisions, including Allen v. Milligan, Callais underscores the need for Congress and states to strengthen protections against discriminatory redistricting practices. The Callais decision is especially dangerous because in many Southern states, partisan and racial gerrymandering are deeply connected. Black voters in the South have historically been packed, cracked, or divided to reduce their electoral influence. When state legislatures claim they are drawing maps for “partisan” reasons, the practical effect is often the same: Black voters lose the ability to elect candidates of choice, and Black communities lose political power. The Brennan Center has warned that Callais could encourage further partisan gerrymandering and allow racial discrimination to continue under the cover of partisan map-drawing. This threat is already visible in Louisiana. After Callais, Louisiana lawmakers advanced a new congressional map that would eliminate the majority-Black district represented by Congressman Cleo Fields. That district was created after courts found that Louisiana’s previous map diluted Black voting power. The new map would reduce Black voters’ opportunity to elect candidates of choice, representing a threat to Black political power that is not limited to Louisiana or congressional districts. Voting rights advocates have warned that the Callais ruling could encourage similar efforts across the South, including in Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and South Carolina. As the Congressional Black Caucus has decried, these changes could affect congressional seats, state legislative districts, county commissions, city councils, school boards, judicial seats, and other local offices where Black communities rely on fair districts for representation. When Black voters are redrawn out of effective districts, communities lose representation on issues such as voting rights, healthcare, housing, maternal health, environmental justice, broadband access, criminal justice reform, and economic opportunity. Racially discriminatory maps weaken democracy at every level of government.

2026 Priorities •

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pack, crack, divide, or weaken Black communities.

Pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore and strengthen federal protections against racial vote dilution.

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Pass the Freedom to Vote Act to create national standards prohibiting partisan gerrymandering and protecting fair representation.

Require transparent redistricting processes with public hearings, accessible maps, racial impact analysis, and community testimony.

•

Educate trusted Black community leaders (organizers, clergy, etc.) on how large scale, multi-jurisdictional redistricting affects not only Congress but elected officials at all levels, and mobilize these individuals to testify during redistricting hearings and submit community-of-interest maps.

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Track which Black elected officials and CBC members are at risk of being redrawn out of effective districts.

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Build rapid response coalitions with civil rights groups, Black elected officials, churches, HBCUs, unions, and community organizations when states attempt mid-decade redistricting.

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Treat partisan gerrymandering in Southern states as a racial justice issue when the effect is to dilute Black voting power.

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Monitor congressional, state legislative, county, city, school board, and judicial redistricting efforts in Southern states.

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Protect majority-Black districts, coalition districts, and opportunity districts that allow Black voters to elect candidates of choice.

•

Support litigation and public education challenging maps that

Resources • • • • •

Louisiana v. Callais: The Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Decision Explained, (Congressional Black Caucus Foundation). Louisiana v. Callais, (Legal Defense Fund). Allen v. Milligan, (Legal Defense Fund). Mapped: Where Redistricting Battles Are Unfolding Nationwide, (Democracy Docket). 2026 Midterm Watch: The Status of the CBC, (Congressional Black Caucus Foundation).

Voting Rights and Civic Engagement

Federal Collection of Voter Data and Election Records Recent federal actions have raised new concerns about voter privacy and confidence in our elections. Since 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice has requested voter registration information, election records, and statewide voter files from numerous states and the District of Columbia. Voting rights advocates warn that broad requests for voter data, coupled with limited transparency about how personal information will be used and protected, could discourage participation, particularly in communities that have historically experienced voter suppression. These concerns grew in January 2026 when the FBI seized 2020 election ballots, ballot images, and voter rolls from the Fulton County Elections Hub in Georgia. For Black voters, this comes as voter ID laws, voter roll purges, increased voter challenges, and weakened Voting Rights Act protections continue to reshape access to the ballot. Together, these actions risk undermining trust in elections and discouraging civic participation in communities that have fought for generations to secure the right to vote. Recent federal efforts have also sought to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program to verify citizenship for voter eligibility. Because the SAVE database was not designed for voter registration, its use can result in eligible citizens, including Black naturalized citizens, being improperly identified and placed at risk of erroneous voter roll removals.

2026 Priorities •

Protect voter registration data and personally identifiable voter information from unnecessary disclosure.

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Require transparency regarding federal requests for voter files, voter registration databases, election records, and election equipment.

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Strengthen federal safeguards governing how voter information may be collected, stored, shared, and used.

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Prohibit the use of voter registration information for purposes unrelated to election administration or voting rights enforcement, as well as the unlawful merging of voter data with other databases.

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Prohibit voter purges based solely on information from the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program without additional verification.

Resources • • •

Tracker of Justice Department Requests for Voter Information, (Brennan Center for Justice). The Trump Administration’s Attempts to Get Sensitive Voter Data Threaten the Rule of Law, (Campaign Legal Center). Federal Courts Reject Trump Administration’s Attempts to Obtain Private Voter Information, (Brennan Center for Justice).

Voting Rights and Civic Engagement

New ID and Passport Policies Affecting Black LGBTQ+ Voters Strict voter ID laws and voter roll purges function as intersecting barriers for Black LGBTQ+/SGL voters, compounding racial and gender-identity discrimination within the same electoral transaction. An estimated 210,800 transgender adults could face barriers voting at the polls due to a name/ gender mismatch on their ID; transgender people who are Black, Indigenous, or people of color are markedly less likely than their white peers to hold accurate documentation. Updating a gender marker is currently forbidden

outright in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and Kansas; over one dozen states impose severe or nearly impassable barriers to the process. The federal government recently removed a third gender designation on passports, which became a primary ID matching the gender identity for Black transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people living in states with restrictions. Ten (mostly southern) states have strict photo ID requirements: Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. Several of these states also have large Black populations, and over half have a history of VRA preclearance and are states with a significant Black transgender population. A Black transgender voter in one of these states may face elevated odds of lacking acceptable ID, a legally blocked or prohibitively costly path to correcting that ID, and residence in a jurisdiction that has used exact-match voter registration policies, which voting-rights advocates have argued disproportionately burden Black voters and can create additional obstacles for Black transgender voters whose names, sex, gender, or photo may differ across government records.

2026 Priorities •

Oppose exact-match and inactivitybased purge criteria in federal and state legislation; defend National Voter Registration Act protections against further rollback.

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Advocate for affordable, accessible administrative (non-judicial) pathways to update gender markers and legal names on state ID documents.

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Require poll worker training that addresses racial profiling and gender-

marker scrutiny as a linked, not separate, problem. •

Support federal standards requiring alternatives to photo ID (e.g., signature affidavits) in all strict-ID states.

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Fund community-based ID clinics targeting Black LGBTQ+/SGL populations ahead of registration deadlines.

Resources • • • • •

The Potential Impact of Voter Identification Laws on Transgender Voters in the 2024 General Election (Sept. 2024), (Williams Institute). US States Revoke Gender-Affirming Identification (2026), (Human Rights Watch). Sex Markers in Passports, (U.S. Department of State). Status of Trump’s 2025 Executive Order on Voting, (Brennan Center for Justice). Equity for the People: Toward a Just and Fair Democracy (2021), (Brennan Center for Justice).

Voting Rights and Civic Engagement

Postal Service Changes and Vote-by-Mail Access Vote-by-mail remains an essential voting option for seniors, voters with disabilities, rural residents, military families, caregivers, and many Black voters who face transportation and work-related barriers. Recent changes to U.S. Postal Service postmark guidance have raised concerns that ballots mailed on time may not receive a qualifying postmark before election deadlines, increasing the risk that valid ballots could be rejected. In response, the National Council of Negro Women joined a coalition of national civil rights organizations urging USPS to strengthen election mail procedures and expand public education to ensure voters are not disenfranchised by inconsistent postal practices.

These concerns come as many communities continue to face polling place closures, limited early voting opportunities, and other barriers to ballot access. Election experts have also warned that postal processing changes and proposals affecting absentee voting could make vote-by-mail less reliable, particularly in rural communities and states with histories of voter suppression. Together, these challenges threaten to reduce equitable access to the ballot and disproportionately impact Black voters and other historically underserved communities. States should also ensure that changes to polling locations are guided by principles of equity, accessibility, and transparency, and don’t have a discriminatory purpose or effect.

2026 Priorities •

Protect and strengthen vote-by-mail by ensuring timely ballot processing, consistent postmark procedures, and voter education.

•

Expand equitable access to early voting and polling locations, particularly in underserved and rural communities.

•

Preserve secure, accessible absentee voting while opposing policies that create unnecessary barriers to ballot access.

Resources • • •

Coalition Letter to the United States Postal Service Regarding Election Mail and Manual Postmarks (2026), (National Council of Negro Women et al.). Voting by Mail and Election Administration, (Brennan Center for Justice). Absentee and Mail Voting Resources, (U.S. Election Assistance Commission).

Voting Rights and Civic Engagement

Federal Law Enforcement and Voter Intimidation Recent immigration enforcement actions have created new concerns about whether federal law enforcement presence could be used, or perceived by voters as being used, to intimidate communities at or near polling places. In Minnesota, large-scale U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity and federal immigration enforcement operations sparked public concern, protests, and questions about the role of federal agents in local communities. Voting rights organizations have warned that sending ICE or other federal agents to polling places would likely violate federal and state laws if the purpose or effect is to intimidate voters. The Brennan Center has stated that ICE deployment at polling sites would be unlawful if used to interfere with voting, and the ACLU has warned voters that federal agents at polling places can create fear, confusion, and a chilling effect. This threat is especially serious for Black, immigrant, multilingual, and mixed-status communities, where voters may fear questioning, surveillance, detention, or retaliation even when they are fully eligible to vote. The presence of armed or uniformed federal agents near polling places could discourage turnout, increase confusion, and undermine the principle that every eligible voter must be able to cast a ballot free from intimidation. Black sheriffs, police chiefs, and local law enforcement leaders have a critical role to play in protecting voters. Law enforcement should not be used as a tool of voter suppression. Instead, local public safety leaders should be educated on election law, voter intimidation protections, de-escalation, and the importance of keeping polling places safe, welcoming, and free from unnecessary armed presence. Election guidance from North Carolina, States United Democracy Center, the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections and the National Policing Institute all emphasize that law enforcement must balance public safety with the right of voters to cast ballots without intimidation.

States should also enact State Voting Rights Acts (SVRAs), which include explicit prohibitions against voter intimidation, deception, and obstruction while providing clear remedies for voters who experience threats, false information, or interference.

2026 Priorities •

Enforce 18 U.S.C. § 592, which prohibits ICE, federal immigration agents, and unnecessary armed law enforcement presence at or near polling places unless required for a specific, lawful, and documented public safety emergency.

•

Educate voters that eligible citizens have the right to vote without intimidation, questioning, harassment, or threats from federal, state, or local law enforcement.

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Train Black sheriffs, police chiefs, marshals, and local law enforcement leaders on voter intimidation laws, prohibitions on troops or armed federal agents at polling places, election protection standards, and deescalation practices.

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Establish clear local protocols requiring law enforcement to remain outside polling locations unless requested by election officials for a legitimate safety concern. Create rapid response systems between election officials, civil rights organizations, local law enforcement, state attorneys general, and community groups when voters report intimidation.

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Ensure that voters know they should not be asked about citizenship status, immigration status, political affiliation, or personal background at the polls beyond lawful voter eligibility procedures.

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Partner with Black sheriffs, Black police chiefs, Black election officials and civil rights attorneys to issue public “Know Your Rights at the Polls” guidance before early voting and Election Day.

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Deploy trained nonpartisan election protection volunteers to monitor polling places, document intimidation, and connect voters to legal support.

•

Pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to strengthen protections against voter intimidation and discriminatory election practices.

•

Enact State Voting Rights Acts that explicitly prohibit voter intimidation, deception, and obstruction.

Resources • • • • •

Sending ICE to Polling Places Is Illegal, (Brennan Center for Justice). Federal Agents at the Polls, (American Civil Liberties Union). What Police Need to Know at the Polls, (States United Democracy Center). Policing in a Time of Elections, (National Policing Institute). Model State Voting Rights Act, (Legal Defense Fund).

Voting Rights and Civic Engagement

Workplace Voter Intimidation Voter intimidation isn’t confined to polling places. A substantial and often overlooked form of pressure happens at work through captive-audience meetings, managerial pressure on candidates or issues, and implicit or explicit threats tied to job security. For Black LGBTQ+/SGL workers, this workplace exposure carries a distinct compounding risk: political conversations at work can force disclosures about identity, community affiliation, or organizing activity that employees would not otherwise choose to make, in workplaces where they may already lack full nondiscrimination protection. Research estimates that between 4 and 14 million Americans have experienced coercive forms of workplace political contact. In a nationally representative survey, 11% of workers reported “get out the vote” mobilization limited to registration and turnout. In comparison, 13% reported employer contact regarding specific issues or candidates, some of which rose to the level of coercion. Documented cases include employers explicitly directing staff toward specific candidates, a practice that blurs the legal line between permitted civic engagement and unlawful coercion. Most states legally prohibit this conduct, though enforcement is inconsistent. Common state-level protections include bans on employers coercing employees into voting, threatening discharge for voting activity, or disseminating communications suggesting employees are expected to vote a certain way. Several states specifically prohibit captive-audience meetings and the maintenance of records of employees’ off-duty political activities without their consent, and many bar employers from threatening to close the business or reduce compensation and hours based on election outcomes. At the federal level, intimidating, threatening, or coercing voters, or attempting to do so, is unlawful, and these protections extend to third parties, including volunteers and voter assistants. An intersectional analysis indicates that workplace political pressure could create a forced-disclosure problem that polling-place intimidation does not.

An employee pressured in a captive-audience meeting or a one-on-one conversation about “how people are voting” may face a choice between staying silent (and appearing to assent to a position they oppose) or disclosing a political stance that reveals their LGBTQ+ identity, their support for racial justice measures, or their affiliation with progressive organizations — disclosures that, absent full nondiscrimination protections enforcement, could expose them to retaliation unrelated to voting law at all. This risk is heightened for workers without civil service protection, without a union, or in states where the line between “political retaliation” (illegal) and “identity-based retaliation dressed up as a performance issue” (harder to prove) is easy for a bad-faith employer to blur.

2026 Priorities •

•

Advocate for federal minimum standards prohibiting captiveaudience meetings and political coercion, closing gaps left by inconsistent state law.

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• Pair voter-intimidation education with know-your-rights materials on employment nondiscrimination, so members understand both protections apply simultaneously.

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Encourage documentation practices (dates, quotes, witnesses) for members who experience workplace political pressure, to support both election-law and employment-law claims.

Partner with labor and employment law organizations to create a rapidresponse reporting channel for members experiencing this form of intimidation. Include this issue explicitly in as many settings as possible, as it is frequently absent from standard voter protection materials that focus narrowly on polling-place conduct.

Resources • • • • • •

Politics at Work: How Companies Turn Their Workers into Lobbyists (2017), (Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, Oxford University Press). State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States and the Nation (2019), (Oxford University Press Citizens Coerced: A Legislative Fix for Workplace Political Intimidation PostCitizens United (2016), (UCLA Law Review Discourse). Retaliation for Political Activity, (Workplace Fairness). Politics in the Workplace: State by State Guide, (Six Fifty). Federal Protections Against Voter Intimidation (2024), (U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division).

Voting Rights and Civic Engagement

Impact of Disinformation Campaigns 22

States should pass State Voting Rights Acts (SVRAs) that prohibit intimidation, deception, and obstruction while providing clear remedies for voters who face threats, false information, or interference. States should also establish dedicated hotlines and online reporting platforms that are accessible to individuals with limited language proficiency and voters with disabilities, including voice and text-based reporting options. The language assistance should be available in the same languages as ballots in each state in the same languages supported by the 866-OUR-Vote Election Protection hotline. States and the federal government should pass legislation establishing both state and national standards governing the use of artificial intelligence in political advertising and other election communication. Although federal law does not yet regulate these kinds of communications, more than 30 states have passed legislation regulating AI-generated media content related to political advertising. These approaches have generally fallen into three categories: disclaimers, blanket prohibitions, and quasi-property protections/right of publicity.

2026 Priorities •

Establish language-accessible and disability-accessible hotlines or online platforms where citizens can report instances of disinformation related to elections.

•

Enact legislation requiring clear disclosure of AI-generated election content and making it unlawful to create or distribute AI-generated content for the purposes of misleading or disinforming voters about the election process.

Resources • • •

Model State Voting Rights Act, (Legal Defense Fund). 866-OUR-VOTE Election Protection Hotline, (Election Protection). AI Restrictions in Political Ads: What to Know About ‘Deepfake’ Disclaimers and Bans, (D. Mark Renaud and Patrick Wohl).

Voting Rights and Civic Engagement

Statewide Races and Voter Morale Voter fatigue and disengagement are often driven by the perception that redistricting has made individual votes irrelevant. This perception, while grounded in real concerns about congressional and state legislative maps, does not extend to statewide races. This distinction should be central to voter education and mobilization efforts. Statewide and citywide offices, such as the governor, U.S. Senate, Attorney General, Secretary of State, mayor, municipal and school board at-large races, and other statewide constitutional offices, have no districts to redraw. Every vote statewide or citywide is counted on identical terms. These offices carry substantial policy weight: governors control state budgets, judicial appointments, and veto power (in some states over gerrymandered maps); U.S. Senators confirm federal judicial nominees, including to the Supreme Court where Callais was decided, can prevent the U.S. president from receiving unjust laws to sign, and have equal voting power regardless of the size of their state; and Secretaries of State frequently oversee election administration itself. Communities that have experienced the direct effects of racial gerrymandering, cracked and packed districts, and diminished representation are often the same communities most vulnerable to disengagement when redistricting erodes trust in the electoral process. Statewide races offer a rare, undiluted point of electoral power precisely where that trust has been most damaged. Framing these races accurately is a tool for combating voter fatigue, not just a civics lesson. Incorporate the “your statewide vote can’t be gerrymandered” message while pairing it with concrete examples of gubernatorial and Senate authority relevant to broader policy priorities and to checks on state legislative and federal executive power (e.g., judicial appointments, state budget allocations, executive orders, and gerrymandering). Messaging should also connect Secretary of State races, given their direct oversight of election administration and relevance to voter ID and roll-purge advocacy, in many states. Federal and state officials should lead by ensuring that elections are secure, thereby restoring trust in statewide elections.

2026 Priorities •

•

Establish dedicated funding, including federal grants, for community-based voter outreach organizations, with priority for communities historically affected by voter suppression, racial gerrymandering, and language and accessibility barriers, to provide nonpartisan voter education, registration assistance, and information about voting rights. Support public education campaigns on the importance of statewide and local elections, emphasizing the roles of governors, secretaries of state, attorneys general, and other statewide offices in protecting voting rights and administering elections. Provide federal funding to states for secure, accessible election administration, including the modernization of voter registration systems, voter education, and protections against discriminatory election practices. This funding can further support accessible polling locations, expanded early voting, accessible vote-by-mail, and recruitment and training of nonpartisan poll workers. Support modernization of statewide voter registration systems by funding interoperability, cybersecurity improvements, online registration, automatic voter registration (where adopted by states), and timely processing of voter registration updates.

•

Expand federal funding for language accessibility and disability access to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, including multilingual ballots, interpreters, and accessible voting equipment.

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Provide grants to improve election transparency, including public-facing tools that allow voters to verify registration status, polling locations, ballot tracking, and election results.

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Fund training for state and local election officials on implementing federal voting rights protections, responding to voter intimidation, ensuring accessibility, and administering elections consistently and impartially.

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Provide resources to improve data collection and reporting on voter registration, provisional ballots, polling-place wait times, and election administration, disaggregated where appropriate by race, ethnicity, language, disability, and other protected characteristics to help identify and address disparities.

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Expand federal cybersecurity assistance for state and local election offices, including funding for risk assessments, incident response planning, and protection against cyber threats targeting election infrastructure.

Resources • • • • • • • •

Public Trust in Government: 1958–2023, (Pew Research Center). Replace: How to stop the gerrymandering wars and give every voter a voice, (FairVote) Gerrymandering Explained, (Brennan Center for Justice). Elections and Redistricting, (National Conference of State Legislatures). The Governor’s Role, (National Governors Association). Election Administration at State and Local Levels (National Conference of State Legislatures). Election Security, (U.S. Election Assistance Commission). Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy (2018), (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine).

Economic Opportunity and Advancement 2025 Playbook Issue Areas:

2026 Playbook Addendum Issue Areas:

• • •

• • • •

Housing Policy Tax Policy Entrepreneurship

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Housing Policy – UPDATE Tax Policy – UPDATE Entrepreneurship – UPDATE Business Succession and Ownership Transfer – NEW Estate Planning and Inheritance – NEW

When the Black Policy Playbook first laid out an economic opportunity agenda in May 2025, it did so in a policy environment oriented, however imperfectly, toward expanding access to capital, homeownership, and wealth-building for Black families. That environment has since inverted. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed into law on July 4, 2025, and a wave of executive action have converted many of the levers this Playbook relied on into instruments moving in the opposite direction: the federal estate and gift tax exemption was made permanent at its highest level in history, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act architecture was locked in, fair housing and fair lending enforcement was weakened, and the community development and minority business institutions that channel capital into Black communities were defunded or destabilized. This section updates the Playbook’s economic opportunity agenda for that shifted terrain. Housing policy tracks the rollback of critical anti-discrimination and fair lending protections alongside the bipartisan openings that remain. Entrepreneurship examines the threats to the CDFI Fund, Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), and capital pipelines Black founders depend on. Tax policy documents how OBBBA’s permanent architecture distributes resources upward while eroding the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit that reach Black families most. And a new addition on business succession and estate planning confronts the largest transfer of business ownership and household wealth in American history, and the planning gaps that threaten to route it around Black families. The through-line is that wealth is not an aspiration but infrastructure, the functional economic base of businesses that can be financed and inherited, homes that are accurately valued and hold equity, and credits that reach the bottom of the income distribution, that lets a community weather shocks and build across generations. Each subsection pairs an updated landscape with concrete policy priorities and resources designed to defend that infrastructure and rebuild what has been dismantled.

Economic Opportunity and Advancement

Housing Policy As noted in the Playbook, housing policy in the United States has historically excluded and underserved Black households leaving Blacks with a 44 percent homeownership rate compared to a 73 percent homeownership rate for whites. Despite the ongoing fair and affordable housing crisis, the Trump Administration’s assault on the nation’s hard-won civil rights laws continues. The Administration weakened longstanding anti-discrimination regulations that have afforded Black Americans fairer access to housing and lending opportunities, rather than tackling housing affordability. Additionally, the Administration implemented nearly 70 percent of Project 2025’s housing and lending recommendations. It has weakened vital fair housing protections, including gutting key fair lending protectionsdisparate impact and Special Purpose Credit Programs- authorized under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) that protect Black people and others from widespread discrimination in housing and lending. Additionally, it has defunded community-based fair housing organizations and eviscerated vital civil rights staffing at agencies such as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), and Department of Justice (DOJ). Nonetheless, Congress passed the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act on July 11, 2026. It is designed to increase housing supply, expand homeownership opportunities, strengthen community development programs, and reduce housing costs for the people of America. It includes a key provision from the Appraisal Modernization Act sponsored by Senator Raphael Warnock and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley codifying a consumer’s right to appeal an appraisal that they believe undervalues their home. It incorporates House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters’ FHA Small Dollar Mortgages Act, which requires the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to establish a pilot program to increase access to small-dollar mortgages under $100,000 by providing grants to homebuyers, incentives to lenders, and outreach to promote the program. Additionally, Congresswoman Nikema Williams’ Whole-Homes Repairs Act, which would establish a 5-year pilot program at HUD to provide grants and forgivable loans to low- and moderateincome homeowners and qualifying landlords for home repairs that improve housing accessibility, remediate health hazards, and address safety standards is included among other important provisions. The law is an important initial step to increasing the supply of safe and affordable housing units. However, its success depends greatly on HUD’s ability to effectively implement its key provisions and provide much needed support and technical assistance. It will also require civil rights oversight to ensure state and local governments provide equitable opportunities to Black communities and people most in need of the supports the bill is intended to provide, including extremely low-income residents and renters. Federal courts are protecting fair housing and lending protections despite federal administrative attempts to roll them back. Washington State’s

Covenant Homeownership Program, a Special Purpose Credit Program (SPCP) designed to reduce longstanding racial injustices in homeownership, was upheld by a federal judge. The ruling marks a significant legal milestone for SPCPs nationwide that were established under ECOA in 1976. Since launching in 2024, the program has provided down payment and closing cost assistance to more than 1,100 first-time homebuyers whose families were excluded from the opportunity to own a home because they are Black, Latino, Native American, Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Korean, or Asian Indian. (Note: HUD is investigating Washington State’s program and fair housing efforts in Minneapolis and Boston. The Trump Administration has also joined a lawsuit compensating victims of housing discrimination in Evanston.) State governments have also advanced fair housing policies to protect their residents, including: •

•

The Maryland Fair Chance at Housing Act that requires landlords to conduct an individualized assessment which considers relevant mitigating information beyond that contained in an individual’s criminal record and requires landlords to consider the nature, severity, and recency of criminal conduct. The Maryland Fair Housing and Housing Discrimination - Regulations, Intent, and Discriminatory Effect codifying disparate impact liability, a key tool to ensure that housing policy works fairly for everyone. The legislation also permits the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development to issue guidance on how counties, cities, and housing authorities must affirmatively further fair housing. The State of New York codified the disparate impact standard in the human rights law; providing that in cases of alleged housing discrimination, an unlawful discriminatory practice may be established by a practice’s discriminatory effect.

2026 Priorities •

Provide critical funding for downpayment assistance for first-generation homebuyers to enable them to compete against institutional investors.

•

Increase funding for the Housing Choice Voucher Program as nearly 50 percent of all renters are cost burdened, paying greater than 30 percent of their income on rents.

•

Reform the Federal Home Loan Bank System to direct substantially more of its

net income to fair and affordable housing, with full compliance with the Fair Housing Act’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing obligation. •

States and local governments should continue to pass and enforce strong fair housing laws.

•

Ensure access to affordable, quality property insurance in all communities.

Resources • • •

2025 Fair Housing Trends Report, (National Fair Housing Alliance). The State of The Nation’s Housing 2026, (Joint Center for Housing Studies: Harvard University). Locked Up, Locked Out: The Racialized Cycle of Criminalization and Homelessness, (Legal Defense Fund).

Economic Opportunity and Advancement

Tax Policy The window identified in the 2025 Playbook has closed. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed into law on July 4, 2025, made the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act architecture permanent. The Tax Policy Center estimates that nearly 60 percent of the law’s tax benefits flow to households in the top income quintile, and the Congressional Budget Office finds that once Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program cuts are counted, resources decrease for households at the bottom of the income distribution while increasing for those in the middle and at the top. The law’s treatment of families illustrates the distributional design. OBBBA permanently raised the maximum Child Tax Credit (CTC) from $2,000 to $2,200 per child, but left the earnings floor and partial refundability in place, so the families with the least income gain nothing from the increase. Forty-five percent of Black children will not receive the full CTC under OBBBA, compared with roughly 22 percent of white children, and a new Social Security number requirement cuts or reduces the credit for up to 1.5 million children in mixed status families. Congress also dropped proposals to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), leaving this Playbook’s EITC priority unfinished. At the other end of the wealth distribution, OBBBA permanently raised the estate, gift, and generation skipping transfer tax exemption to $15 million per person, or $30 million per married couple, indexed for inflation with no sunset. The federal government now permanently subsidizes the intergenerational transfer of the largest fortunes, which are overwhelmingly white, while defunding the public sector jobs and benefits that have historically built Black middle-class wealth. Additionally, the OBBBA created “Trump Accounts,” tax advantaged savings accounts seeded with $1,000 in public funds for children born between 2025 and 2028, with families, employers, and donors able to contribute up to $5,000 per year. Because the accounts provide the same flat deposit to every child and then reward families with the capacity to contribute more, the design is likely to widen rather than narrow the racial wealth divide. By contrast, researchers estimate that a progressively structured national Baby Bonds program, with

larger automatic deposits for children from the lowest wealth families, could reduce the Black-white wealth gap among young adults by more than 90 percent at the median.

2026 Priorities •

Restore full refundability of the Child Tax Credit and remove the earnings floor so that the lowest income children, who are disproportionately Black, receive the full credit, and restore eligibility for children in mixed status families.

•

Enact the Earned Income Tax Credit expansion for workers without dependent children that Congress dropped from OBBBA, including younger and older workers.

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Revisit the permanent $15 million estate and gift tax exemption and pair any wealth transfer taxation reform with wealthbuilding investments for families historically excluded from inheritance.

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Restructure Trump Accounts toward a Baby Bonds design: automatic enrollment at birth rather than opt in, and larger public deposits for children in low-wealth and lowincome households, so that public seed money narrows rather than compounds existing wealth gaps.

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Oppose EITC pre-certification and similar administrative burden proposals in future reconciliation legislation, which function as upfront audits of low- and moderateincome working families, and redirect program integrity efforts toward simplifying eligibility verification without denying eligible workers the credit.

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Restore and require the publication of federal analyses of tax expenditure benefits by race and ethnicity, so that the distributional consequences of major tax legislation for Black households are documented before enactment rather than discovered afterward.

Resources • • • • • • •

OBBBA’s Child Tax Credit: What It’s Really Costing Black Families During an Affordability Crisis, (Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies). How children are treated in the One Big Beautiful Bill, (The Brookings Institution). Trump’s Budget Bill Will Massively Expand the Racial Wealth Gap, (In These Times). The Truth About Trump Accounts and Black Wealth, (Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies). 2025 Tax Legislation: Analyses of the EITC Pre-Certification Proposal and Other Provisions, (New York University School of Law: Tax Law Center). Senate Reconciliation Bill, One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA): Distributional Analysis, (Tax Policy Center). Increases to the Federal Estate and Gift Tax Exemption Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, (Arnold & Porter).

Economic Opportunity and Advancement

Entrepreneurship The federal infrastructure supporting Black entrepreneurship that the 2025 Playbook called on Congress to strengthen has instead been dismantled or placed at risk. A March 2025 executive order directed the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) and the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund to reduce their functions and personnel to the minimum required by law. At MBDA, the only federal agency solely dedicated to the growth of minority business enterprises and a permanent agency under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, nearly all of the agency’s roughly 50 employees were laid off and the remaining career staff received reduction in force notices, leaving the agency effectively dormant despite its statutory mandate. This is the same agency the 2025 Playbook urged Congress to fund at higher levels, and the same agency that in a single recent fiscal year facilitated more than $1 billion in capital access and billions in contract awards for minority business enterprises. The challenge of strengthening the 4.3 million Black businesses with only 4 percent having employees has become greater because of government action. The CDFI Fund has so far fared better: the U.S. Department of the Treasury confirmed that all 11 of the Fund’s programs are statutory and will continue to operate, preserving for now the network of more than 1,400 community development financial institutions that lend where traditional banks do not, and that turn every federal dollar into an estimated $5 to $10 in private investment. But the administration’s most recent budget proposal calls for eliminating CDFI Fund discretionary awards and the MBDA outright, and small business advocates warn that hollowing out these institutions removes capital and technical assistance that women owned and Black owned businesses report kept them open. For Black entrepreneurs, who face the highest rates of credit denial of any group, the practical effect is that the capital access problem this Playbook described has worsened while the federal tools built to solve it have been shut off.

2026 Priorities •

Restore MBDA staffing, funding, and business center operations consistent with its permanent statutory mandate under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and use congressional oversight to document the effects of its dormancy on minority business enterprises.

•

Protect the CDFI Fund’s full appropriation, reject proposals to eliminate its discretionary award programs, and continue support for Minority Depository Institutions through equity investments and deposit programs.

•

Design federal and state capital access programs to withstand legal challenges while still reaching underserved entrepreneurs, including place based, wealth based, and credit history-based eligibility criteria.

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The U.S. Treasury Department should develop a fair lending oversight program that is more consistent with the oversight structure of the other federal financial regulators; provide guidance to CDFIs on the use of less discriminatory alternatives to traditional credit scoring; and require CDFIs with assets greater than $1 billion to enter into Community Benefits Agreements in their Target Markets to ensure their missions remain a focus of their work.

•

Expand state level capital tools, including the State Small Business Credit Initiative, as a backstop for diminished federal programs.

Resources • • •

Targeting Economic Development Agencies for Elimination, (Economic Policy Institute, Policy Watch). Update: Executive Order and Treasury Department Response on CDFI Fund, (International Economic Development Council). Gutting of CDFI Fund, MBDA is Bad Small Business Policy, (Small Business Majority).

Economic Opportunity and Advancement

Business Succession and Ownership Transfer The United States is entering the largest transfer of small business ownership in its history, and Black communities are positioned to lose the most from it. More than half of small business owners are now over age 55, and the McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility projects that roughly 6 million small and midsize businesses will change hands by 2035, with about 1 million expected to sell in transactions worth a cumulative $5 trillion. The rest will close, because most owners have no formal succession plan and only an estimated 20 to 30 percent of businesses that go to market actually sell. When a business closes instead of transferring, the wealth it embodies, along with its jobs, its customer relationships, and its role as a community institution, simply disappears. For Black business owners and families, this succession crisis lands on top of a preexisting planning gap. Roughly 70 percent of Black Americans have no will or estate plan, and the Urban Institute finds that Black homeowners are less likely than white homeowners to have wills or estate plans, in part because their wealth is concentrated in the home itself, leaving few liquid assets to pay for planning and putting families at risk of tangled property titles that block housing wealth from passing to the next generation. Research suggests that closing the racial will gap alone would shrink the Black-white wealth gap by roughly 10 percent over 3 generations. Because Black-owned businesses are community institutions that often took generations to build, wealth leaves Black communities when there is no plan for its transfer. The planning gap extends to business structure itself. Roughly 96 percent of Black owned businesses are sole proprietorships or other non-employer firms. A sole proprietorship is also legally inseparable from its owner: it cannot be sold as an entity, holds no transferable equity, and typically ends when the owner stops working. How a business is organized is therefore not merely a tax classification made at filing time: it is a wealth decision that determines whether the enterprise can build equity, raise capital, and outlive its founder. Succession planning is therefore wealth infrastructure; the ownership transition wave is both a preservation problem, protecting the value that retiring Black owners have built, and an acquisition opportunity, since a buyer’s market of retiring owners

offers the next generation of Black entrepreneurs a lower barrier path into ownership than starting from scratch, including through employee ownership models that keep businesses rooted in their communities.

2026 Priorities •

•

Fund business succession as an economic development priority: implement and expand Small Business Administration financing for ownership transitions, including employee stock ownership plan and worker cooperative conversions. Support state employee ownership centers that help retiring owners evaluate transition options, and fund outreach to connect retiring Black-owned businesses with these transition resources. Direct CDFIs and Minority Depository Institutions toward acquisition and succession financing, not only startup lending, so that employees, family members, and community buyers can purchase the businesses they already sustain.

•

Deliver exit planning technical assistance to business owners of color through Small Business Development Centers and a restored MBDA.

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Encourage local governments to use business license data to identify longstanding firms approaching ownership transitions.

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Support the transition of Black-owned sole proprietorships into formal legal entities and employer firms, including funding for entity formation, legal assistance and education on business structure as a wealth-building decision, so that more Black-owned businesses hold equity that can be financed, sold, and inherited.

Resources • • • • • •

Millions of Small Businesses Soon Changing Hands as Baby Boomers Retire in ‘Great Ownership Transfer’, (Forbes). Employee Ownership Can Help Weather the ‘Silver Tsunami’, (Harvard University). The Silver Tsunami: Small Business Closure Crisis, (Project Equity). Black Businesses as Community Anchors: History, Economic Power, and the Fight to Preserve It, (The Brookings Institution). Reaping the Unrealized Gains of Black Businesses, (The Brookings Institution). How Ample Succession Planning Tips Can Help Ensure Long Life for Black Businesses, (Black Enterprise).

Economic Opportunity and Advancement

Estate Planning and Inheritance The business ownership transition is one current within a much larger tide. The United States is entering its largest intergenerational wealth transfer ever, with an estimated $124 trillion passing to heirs. The Civil Rights Generation of Black elders, born 1925 to 1955, stands at a crossroads: absent profound changes in tax policy, that transfer will reinforce 40 years of wealth concentration and harden rather than heal the racial wealth divide. Federal policy currently supports wealth transfer at only one end of the distribution. OBBBA made the $15 million per person estate tax exemption permanent, while no comparable federal infrastructure helps families at the median execute a basic will, clear a tangled title, or finance the transfer of a business. For the roughly 70 percent of Black Americans without a will, state intestacy law is the default succession plan. That default scatters ownership among every legal heir as tenants in common, a fragile arrangement in which a single coowner’s petition can force a partition sale, often at a fraction of market value, converting a family’s principal asset into a windfall for speculators. The result is a quiet, compounding erosion: homes foreclosed over tax debts no heir knew existed, farmland lost to buyers who understand the partition docket better than the families listed on it, and small businesses simply dissolved because no document named a successor and no affordable counsel was available to create one. Further, intestacy distributes assets to legal and biological family members, which can leave Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer+, and same-gender loving (LGBTQ+/ SGL) elders and business owners most exposed, since partners and chosen family can be excluded from inheritance entirely without executed planning documents. Despite marriage equality, in many states, same-sex parents must still formally adopt the children they create. That extra requirement creates a legal uncertainty around parental rights and, by extension, a child’s inheritance. Reversing these patterns demands a policy infrastructure as deliberate as the one that already shelters dynastic wealth at the top. Taken together, these priorities listed below would begin to construct, for the first time, a public succession infrastructure that serves families across the wealth spectrum.

2026 Priorities •

Encourage state adoption of the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act to protect families from forced sales of inherited property through court-supervised buyout rights, independent appraisals, and a presumption in favor of family retention.

•

Develop guidance and legal aid pathways to help community members identify, claim, and secure the inheritance they are rightfully owed, addressing documentation and estrangement-related obstacles to access.

•

Federally funded legal aid specifically for estate planning in underserved communities

•

Federal and state agencies should strengthen foreclosure prevention programs designed to preserve Blackowned assets, intervening before tax liens and predatory purchasers strip equity from aging homeownership

Protect inheritance rights for Black LGBTQ+/ SGL individuals and chosen families by expanding access to wills, trusts, business transfers, and beneficiary designation tools, recognizing that intestacy defaults do not reflect how many Black families are actually structured.

•

Push for legislation at every level of government that establishes parentage based on the reality of how families are formed, not outdated assumptions, and removes the adoption requirement that currently burdens same-sex parents alone.

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Support statutory language that recognizes by designation chosen family for inheritance, medical decision-making, and end-of-life purposes, so legal standing doesn’t depend solely on blood or marriage.

•

Support community-based outreach through religious organizations, civic organizations, and CDFIs.

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State and local government should fund and partner with bar associations and HBCUs to provide free or low-cost willdrafting programs in communities.

Resources • • • • • • • • •

The Civil Rights Generation, the Great Wealth Transfer and Our Need to Address the Racial Wealth Divide, (American Society on Aging: Generations). To Prevent Racial Wealth and Homeownership Gaps from Widening, Break Down Barriers to Estate Planning, (Urban Institute). Using Trusts and Estate Planning to Fight Systemic Racism, (Financial Planning). From Ownership to Legacy: The Estate Planning Conversation Every Business Owner Needs to Have, (The Washington Informer). Relationships at Risk: Why We Need to Update State Parentage Laws to Protect Children and Families, (Movement Advancement Project). Legal Issues for LGBTQ+ Caregivers, (Family Caregiver Alliance). Parental Recognition Laws (state-by-state tracker) (Movement Advancement Project Equality Maps). The $124 trillion Great Wealth Transfer is bigger than ever – and millennials will get the biggest cut, (Fortune). One Big Beautiful Bill? A preliminary assessment, (The Brookings Institution).

Workforce

2025 Playbook Issue Areas:

2026 Playbook Addendum Issue Areas:

• • •

• •

Occupational Segregation Job Quality Federal Industrial Policy Investments

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The State of Black Employment – NEW The Dismantling of Civil Rights Protections for Black Workers and Contractors – NEW Increasing Barriers to Food Aid and Healthcare – NEW

Since January 2025, the Trump administration has accelerated its attacks on Black workers and contractors, from weakening the federal workforce to dismantling critical protections that help ensure equal opportunity. These attacks have contributed to increased unemployment for Black people and ongoing disparities in pay and benefits. At the same time, the Trump administration’s signature legislation, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA), ends federal investments that would have led to the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs and adds burdensome new requirements that will make it harder for people—including many people who are already working—to access federal benefits. It is also unclear whether Black people will benefit from the Act’s expansion of grants for workforce training. Congress, state and local governments, and private employers must take action to reverse these actions in order to grow the economy and ensure Black communities prosper.

Workforce

The State of Black Employment 40

For decades, federal jobs have offered a path to the middle class for Black people, women, and other workers, offering the opportunity for public service, workplace protections, and more equitable salaries. The Trump administration’s recent actions threaten this important pathway. The federal workforce shrank by 12 percent between September 2024 and January 2026, and approximately 350,000 workers had left federal service. Some were fired; others retired or resigned because they were worried they would lose their jobs or felt they could no longer do their jobs effectively or properly serve their agencies’ missions. Most recently, President Trump stripped 8,000 federal career employees of civil service protections. By making it easier for the President to fire workers at will, these changes elevate partisan loyalty over expertise and make it harder to recruit and retain talented and knowledgeable professionals to execute the law. President Trump’s actions in 2025 have increased unemployment for Black workers and weakened the government’s ability to effectively serve all people. Black women, who make up 12 percent of the federal workforce, nearly twice their share of the overall workforce, absorbed the deepest losses. Black women lost more than 95,000 federal jobs in 2025, roughly a third of the total contraction, and their unemployment rate rose from 5.4 percent at the start of 2025 to 7.3 percent by December 2025 and was at 6.2% mid-year of 2026. The Economic Policy Institute finds that public sector losses drove the entire net decline in Black women’s employment in 2025, with the steepest drops among college educated Black women. These losses ripple outward: Black households rely more heavily on wage income than on wealth, Black women are frequently primary breadwinners for their families, and nearly half of Black families have zero retirement savings, making the pensions and benefits attached to public sector employment critical to avoiding poverty in retirement.

2026 Priorities •

Halt reductions in force across federal agencies, restore merit system protections for federal workers, and require public reporting on the demographic impact of federal workforce cuts by agency, occupation, race, and gender.

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Invest in targeted reemployment services, including hiring preferences, training, and income support, for displaced federal workers and contractors, with attention to the Washington, DC region and other metropolitan areas where Black federal employment is concentrated.

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Invest in efforts to recruit and retain talented career experts in the civil service.

Resources • • •

Black Women Suffered Large Employment Losses in 2025, Particularly Among College Graduates and Public-Sector Workers, (Economic Policy Institute). Black Women’s Unemployment Rate Hit 7.3% in December, (The 19th). Federal Job Cuts Hit Black Women Hard: A Year Later, Unemployment Is Up, (The American Prospect and Capital & Main).

Workforce

The Dismantling of Civil Rights Protections for Black Workers and Contractors The Trump administration has also continued its attack on critical protections ensuring equal access to opportunities for and remedying discrimination against Black people. Through investigations, guidance documents, and other actions, the administration has pressured employers to roll back initiatives that advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. Among other actions, President Trump issued a new executive order in March 2026 seeking to deter equal opportunity programs by federal contractors. Federal agencies like the Department of Transportation have also ended programs designed to remedy discrimination in contracting against Black business owners and other businesses owners who have historically been excluded. At the same time, the federal government has abandoned its core responsibility of protecting all workers from discrimination. Last year, Chair Andrea Lucas of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which investigates workplace discrimination, actively solicited white men to file lawsuits claiming so-called “DEI-related discrimination” —even though evidence shows that Black people and other people of color, women, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ people are more likely to experience workplace discrimination. The EEOC has also dismissed or refused to investigate policies and practices that create unjustified and discriminatory barriers for Black workers—what is known as “disparate impact.” As AI plays an increasing role in employment, from hiring to workplace conditions, this legal tool is more important than ever—but the Trump administration wants to end its use. Finally, the EEOC is planning to stop its workforce demographic data collection, taking away a critical tool in fighting discrimination. Without data showing where barriers to opportunity exist, it will be easier for the EEOC to justify enforcement priorities driven by political priorities. The EEOC has also ended investigations, dismissed cases, and halted data collection regarding discrimination against LGBTQ+ workers. Black LGBTQ+/Same-Gender Loving (SGL) workers face high rates of workplace discrimination due to their intersecting identities. About 51% of Black LGBTQ+/ SGL employees report being fired, denied promotions, or harassed because

of their status. Many hide their identity at work to avoid unfair treatment, which can hurt their mental health and career growth. About 59% of Black LGBTQ+/SGL workers make less than $50,000 per year and are often pushed into lower-paying roles due to bias. While the Trump administration’s actions have created confusion, they have not changed the law. When the Trump administration’s actions have been challenged in court, it has often lost. Policymakers must remind employers of the law and solidify protections for Black workers against further attacks.

2026 Priorities •

•

Halt and/or repeal all executive actions limiting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, including but not limited to Executive Order 14151 (“Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing”), Executive Order 14173, and Executive Order 14398 (“Addressing DEI Discrimination by Federal Contractors”). Restore and codify into law equal opportunity requirements for government contractors, including Executive Order 11246, at the federal, state, and local level. Restore measures to ensure Black workers can equally participate in governmentfunded job training programs, including regulations requiring affirmative marketing in apprenticeship programs to help ensure all communities are aware of the opportunity.

•

Ensure even-handed enforcement of workplace discrimination laws, including actions challenging unfair disparate impacts.

•

Codify disparate impact protections at the federal and state level.

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Codify requirements mandating employers collect and report workplace demographic data to federal and state civil rights enforcement agencies.

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Commission reports and use federal and state legislative hearings and roundtables to collect quantitative and qualitative data on discrimination on government contracting.

Resources • • • • • • • •

Advancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in a Time of Uncertainty: What Employers Need to Know (Legal Defense Fund). Defending Equal Opportunity Programs Against Threats of False Claims Act Liability: What You Need to Know (Legal Defense Fund). The March 26, 2026 Executive Order on Federal Contractors and Diversity, Equity Inclusion, and Accessibility: What You Need to Know (Legal Defense Fund). The Department of Justice’s “Guidance for Recipients of Federal Funding on Unlawful Discrimination”: What You Need to Know (Legal Defense Fund). Trump Takes Aim at Disparate Impact: What Does This Mean, and Why Does It Matter? (Legal Defense Fund). Disparate Impact Civil Rights Claims: A Crucial Tool Under Attack (National Institute for Workers’ Rights). Black LGBTQ+/SGL Workforce Discrimination (Williams Institute). Workplace Experiences of Black LGBTQ Employees (Williams Institute).

Workforce

Increasing Barriers to Food Aid and Healthcare The OBBBA, signed into law on July 4, 2025, moved federal policy in the opposite direction from the original Playbook’s recommendation to eliminate work requirements and other barriers to federal benefits. The law conditions Medicaid coverage for expansion adults on 80 hours per month of work or other qualifying activity beginning in January 2027, and expands Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) work requirements to adults up to age 64 while removing exemptions for veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and young people aging out of foster care. The Urban Institute projects that work requirements and six-month eligibility redeterminations will leave between 4.9 million and 10.1 million fewer people enrolled in Medicaid expansion coverage in an average month in 2028. These are workforce policies as much as health policies: in the first six months after enactment about 3.5 million people lost SNAP benefits, with enrollment falling in every state, largely through paperwork and processing failures rather than employment gains, and the health care sector, which employs 1 in 5 Black women, is projected to shed roughly 300,000 jobs by 2034 as Medicaid cuts take hold. OBBBA also created Workforce Pell Grants, with final rules effective in July 2026. For the first time, students can use Pell Grants for short-term programs, with eligible programs requiring approval from both the state’s governor and the U.S. Department of Education. This opens funded pathways for Black workers who cannot step away for a multiyear degree, but it carries real risk: Workforce Pell counts against a student’s 12 semester lifetime Pell limit, no comprehensive national data source tracks the outcomes of short-term programs, and Black students have long been targeted by high-cost, low-quality programs. Because approval runs through governors, states are the immediate arena for ensuring Workforce Pell delivers quality credentials rather than draining students’ limited aid. Finally, the federal industrial policy investments described in the previous edition of the 2025 Playbook have shifted from uncertainty into rollback. OBBBA terminates most Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) clean energy incentives years ahead of schedule, and rescinded the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, including Solar for All and the Environmental Justice Block

Grants. Analysts estimate the rollback will eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs by 2030, with more than $22 billion in clean energy investments already cancelled in 2025. The place-based investments celebrated in 2025, which reached 99 percent of the country’s high-poverty counties, are being unwound before their job creation for Black workers could materialize.

2026 Priorities •

Establish state level quality guardrails for Workforce Pell through the governor approval process, including reasonable tuition standards, transparency and disclosure requirements for prospective students, and completion, job placement, and earnings benchmarks, building on model legislation already advancing in several states.

•

Require that Workforce Pell outcome data, including completion, placement, and earnings, be disaggregated by race and published at the program level, consistent with this Playbook’s existing data priorities.

•

Fully fund the Pell Grant program so that the projected shortfall does not force award cuts or eligibility restrictions that would fall hardest on Black students and workers, and hold underperforming short-term programs accountable so students do not exhaust lifetime Pell eligibility on credentials without labor market value.

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Repeal the OBBBA Medicaid and SNAP work requirements; until repeal, require states to maximize automated data matching, apply all available exemptions, and conduct robust multichannel outreach so that eligible workers are not stripped of coverage through paperwork and reporting failures.

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Restore rescinded clean energy and environmental justice investments, including the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, and preserve the prevailing wage and apprenticeship standards attached to remaining energy tax credits so that surviving projects still deliver quality jobs.

Resources • • • • • • • • •

NASFAA Deep Dive: ED Releases Final Rule for Pell Grant Provisions of OBBBA, (National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators). Preparing to Implement Workforce Pell Grants: States Should Legislate to Solidify Student Protections, (The Institute for College Access and Success). How the Reconciliation Law Changes the Pell Grant Program, (The Institute for College Access and Success). Pell Grant Expansion: What’s Next for Students and Providers, (Jobs for the Future). President Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act,’ Explained (Legal Defense Fund). Work Requirements: Comparison of Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) After P.L. 119-21, (Congressional Research Service). Projected Reductions in Medicaid Expansion Enrollment Under OBBBA’s Work Requirements and Six-Month Redeterminations, (Urban Institute). Trump’s Budget Bill Will Massively Expand the Racial Wealth Gap, (In These Times). Energy Tax Policy Under the OBBBA, (Peter G. Peterson Foundation).

Education 2025 Playbook Issue Areas:

2026 Playbook Addendum Issue Areas:

• • •

•

Attacks on Black History Debt Cancellation Access to Postsecondary education and Affirmative Action

• • •

Pell Grants After the One Big Beautiful Bill Act – NEW The Harms of the New Federal Private School Voucher Program – NEW Changes to Higher Education Financing System – NEW Educational Disparities Affecting Black LGBTQ+ Youth – NEW

When the Playbook first addressed education, it advanced an agenda built on expanding college access, protecting students from predatory programs, and closing the resource gaps that shape Black educational attainment. The policy landscape has since shifted sharply. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) rewrote federal student aid, tightening Pell Grant eligibility, creating a new short-term Workforce Pell program, eliminating Grad PLUS loans, and restructuring repayment, while the administration moved to dismantle civil rights enforcement at the Department of Education, expand federally subsidized private school vouchers, and roll back protections for the students this Playbook set out to serve. This section updates the education agenda for that environment: Pell Grants after OBBBA, where new eligibility restrictions and a looming funding shortfall fall hardest on the Black students who rely most on federal aid; the federal voucher program as a new engine of privatization and resegregation; the higher-education financing changes that deepen the debt burdens Black students already carry; and the educational disparities facing Black LGBTQ+/SameGender-Loving (SGL) youth as civil rights protections are reshaped. The common thread is that federal education policy has moved from expanding opportunity to restricting it, and each restriction lands disproportionately on Black students because of where they are concentrated in the aid, enrollment, and borrowing systems.

Education

Pell Grants After the One Big Beautiful Bill Act The OBBBA quietly rewrote Pell Grant eligibility in ways that fall hardest on the lowestincome students. Under the final rules that the U.S. Department of Education issued to implement the law, beginning with the 2026-27 award year, students whose grants and scholarships from non-federal sources meet or exceed their cost of attendance lose Pell eligibility, foreign income is now counted in the aid calculation, and students whose Student Aid Index equals or exceeds twice the maximum award are newly ineligible. The scholarship provision deserves particular attention from Black communities. A student who earns a full scholarship, including through the scholarship programs that Black churches, civic organizations, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities have built over generations, can lose the Pell funds many students use for the living costs a tuition scholarship does not cover. Because 71 percent of Black students receive federal Title IV aid, compared with 55 percent of all students, every tightening of Pell eligibility reaches deeper into Black student enrollment than into enrollment overall. The larger threat is structural. OBBBA added $10.5 billion in mandatory funding to avert a projected Pell shortfall for fiscal year 2026, but the Congressional Budget Office now projects that the program will be $5.5 billion short by the end of fiscal year 2026 and $11.5 billion short in fiscal year 2027, with a cumulative gap that could reach $132 billion by 2036, and if Congress does not add funding by September 30, the more than 7 million students who rely on Pell could face grant cuts or eligibility restrictions. The current administration’s posture makes the stakes plain: its fiscal year 2026 budget request proposed cutting the maximum award by 23 percent, from $7,395 to $5,710, a proposal Congress rejected on a bipartisan basis while holding the maximum award flat. The maximum award has now been frozen for four consecutive years, leaving it near its lowest inflation adjusted value since the late 1970s, covering the smallest share of college costs in the program’s history even as about 61 percent of Pell recipients come from families earning less than $30,000 a year. For Black students, who carry the heaviest student debt burdens of any group, every dollar of eroded Pell value converts directly into borrowing.

2026 Priorities •

Close the Pell funding gap before the September 30 deadline without cutting awards or eligibility and move the program toward full mandatory funding so that grants for the lowest income students no longer depend on annual appropriations fights.

•

Reject proposals to cut the maximum Pell award and increase and index the maximum award to inflation to reverse four years of erosion in its purchasing power.

•

Amend the scholarship displacement provision so that students who earn full non-federal scholarships, disproportionately affecting high-need students, retain Pell eligibility for living costs and are not penalized for scholarship success.

•

Require the U.S. Department of Education to publish race-disaggregated data on the enrollment and aid effects of the new eligibility restrictions, including the scholarship offset, the foreign income rule, and the Student Aid Index cutoff.

•

Coordinate Pell advocacy with Workforce Pell implementation so that the expansion to short-term programs is funded with new money and quality guardrails rather than absorbed by a program already in shortfall (see the Workforce section update).

Resources • • • • • •

The Pell Grant Program Faces a Major Funding Gap. Congress Must Act, (The Institute for College Access and Success). Pell Grant Facing $11.5B Shortfall, CBO Says, (Inside Higher Ed). NASFAA Deep Dive: ED Releases Final Rule for Pell Grant Provisions of OBBBA, (National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators). How the Reconciliation Law Changes the Pell Grant Program, (The Institute for College Access and Success). Congress Moves to Reject Trump Plan to Slash Education Department Funding, (Higher Ed Dive). Pell Grant Cuts Threaten State College Access Goals, (The Brookings Institution).

Education

The Harms of the New Federal Private School Voucher Program Despite our constitution’s mandate to provide equal educational opportunities for all students, last year Congress created the first-ever federal private school voucher program through the OBBBA. This program permits individuals to funnel up to $1,700 annually to scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs) to fund private school expenses and receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit. Once fully implemented, the federal private school voucher program will divert billions of public dollars to unaccountable private actors and harm students, schools, and communities across this country. Each year, each state must decide whether to opt in to the program. While Treasury has not yet finalized regulations for the program, it is likely the regulations will prohibit states from creating standards such as requiring SGOs to prioritize funding for public school students or ensuring that SGOs and private schools do not discriminate. Private schools can and often do deny admission, discipline, and expel students because of disability status, family status, language ability, religious affiliation, or race. Likewise, SGOs can and often do discriminate when deciding who will get vouchers. School vouchers were first established by white segregationists who did not want to send their children to public school with Black children. States across the South adopted school voucher programs in the 1950-70s to encourage this – subsidizing the education of white families to entrench racial segregation and at the expense of providing a quality education to Black children. Today’s school voucher schemes are designed to do the same – benefit white families at the expense of Black families. Vouchers subsidize only a portion of the cost of most private school tuition and rely on a tax credit system to keep private schools separate and inaccessible to Black families and low- and middle-income families generally. Studies show that the majority of students who receive vouchers were already attending private school or have never attended public school and private schools currently mostly serve white students. Private schools and voucher programs exacerbate segregation, are rife with fraud and abuse, and do not improve academic outcomes for many students.

For the vast majority of American families—particularly Black families, other families of color, and low-income families— “school choice” offers no meaningful choice at all. Real school choice is ensuring families can access a thriving public school system that considers the needs of all students, not a taxpayer-funded two-tier system that divests from public schools and cherry picks its students.

2026 Priorities •

Repeal the federal voucher program created by the OBBBA and increase investment in high quality, equitable public education for all students.

•

Until this can be implemented, the following priorities are intended to limit the disproportionate, negative impacts of the new federal voucher program. While accountability and transparency are important, they cannot fully eliminate the harm that will result from the federal private school voucher scheme. •

Require comprehensive nondiscrimination protections as a condition of SGOs and school participation in the federal voucher program. Treasury regulations and any subsequent legislation should condition participation in the federal voucher program on enforceable nondiscrimination standards that match or exceed those governing public schools.

•

Every SGO and private school receiving voucher-funded students should be required to collect and publicly report data on admissions, student discipline, expulsion, academic performance, graduation or completion rates disaggregated by race, sex, national origin, ethnicity, disability status, religious affiliation, English learner status, and family income.

Resources • • • • • • • • • •

A History of Private Schools and Race, (Southern Education Foundation). Connecting the Troubling History of School Privatization Efforts to the New Federal School Voucher Program, (Southern Education Foundation). Here is the Truth: School Vouchers Just Don’t Work, (Southern Education Foundation). Federal Voucher Program, (Public Funds Public Schools). The Federal Tax Credit Program is Not Offering Free Money for States, (National Coalition for Public Education). Statement for the Record on the Harms of the Federal Private School Voucher Program, (Legal Defense Fund) Segregation Academies Across the South Are Getting Millions in Taxpayer Dollars, (ProPublica). How Vouchers Harm Public Schools, (Economic Policy Institute) A New Federal Voucher Program Poised to Ramp Up School Segregation, (The Century Foundation). School Vouchers Fail the Civil Rights Test. The Federal Program Is No Exception, (The 74).

Education

Changes to Higher Education Financing System The OBBBA fundamentally restructured federal student lending by eliminating Graduate PLUS loans for new borrowers, imposing strict caps on Parent PLUS loans, and instituting new repayment plans that ensure many borrowers will pay higher amounts for longer periods. These changes do nothing to reduce the cost of college; they simply restrict who can afford to attend. Parent borrowers will be capped at $20,000 per year and $65,000 lifetime per child. The OBBBA also eliminates affordable repayment options and loan forgiveness programs, including Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) for new parent borrowers. This effectively removes the only meaningful long-term relief options for these borrowers. The elimination of Graduate PLUS loans is especially harmful to Black students and other low-wealth students. Graduate PLUS previously allowed students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance. Under the OBBBA, new graduate borrowers are limited to: • •

Master’s programs: $20,500 annually and $100,000 lifetime. Professional programs: $50,000 annually and $200,000 lifetime.

The OBBBA’s loan limits remain insufficient for many high-cost programs. Students pursuing degrees in law, medicine, dentistry, and other expensive professional fields will have to navigate substantial financing gaps because the new loan limits often fall well below the full cost of attendance. Black students, who have less access to intergenerational wealth and face greater barriers to obtaining private loans for their education, will be disproportionately affected. These financing constraints threaten to reduce access to professions that provide economic mobility while worsening workforce shortages in healthcare, education, social work, and other essential fields. Because Black professionals are more likely to serve Black communities, these barriers will have lasting consequences for communities that already face significant disparities in access to care and services.

Under the OBBBA, new borrowers will be limited to just two restrictive repayment plans: a new tiered standard plan with fixed monthly payments for a term of 10-25 years and the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), an income-driven repayment (IDR) plan requiring monthly payments of 1% to 10% of a borrower’s income for up to 30 years before being eligible for forgiveness. RAP has no income protection to ensure that low-income families can cover their basic needs before making student loan payments. Most borrowers will face higher payments, longer repayment periods, and increased risk of delinquency and default—impacts that will fall disproportionately on borrowers with low or volatile incomes, including Black borrowers.

2026 Priorities •

Repeal the student loan provisions of the OBBBA.

•

Ensure the Department of Education’s regulations do not compound the harms of the loan caps by excluding important careers from the definition of professional degrees.

•

Increase grant aid for graduate students.

•

Invest in institutions that serve Black students and other students of color, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Predominately Black Institutions, and other Minority-Serving Institutions.

•

Preserve affordable income-driven repayment options and meaningful debt relief for all borrowers.

Resources • • • •

NWLC, LDF, and Lawyers’ Committee Comment on Department of Education’s proposed “Professional Degree” changes as harmful to women, Black students, and other students of color, (National Women’s Law Center). (GENERAL-26-42) Update to List of Professional Degree Programs Due to Court Order (Updated July 10, 2026), (Federal Student Aid). Raising the Cost of Borrowing, Reducing Access: How the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Reshapes Financial Aid and Repayment, (EdTrust). Key Changes to Federal Student Loans Made in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, (Harvard University).

Education

Educational Disparities Affecting Black LGBTQ+ Youth Black LGBTQ+/SGL youth experience educational inequities shaped by the intersecting impacts of racism, anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, poverty, disability, and housing instability, including instability resulting from family rejection. These overlapping forms of marginalization can contribute to economic insecurity, criminalization associated with survival strategies, barriers to college enrollment and persistence, and diminished access to educational opportunities. Together, these conditions are linked to lower levels of school connectedness, increased exposure to bullying and harassment, disproportionate school discipline, poorer mental health outcomes, and reduced educational attainment compared with students experiencing fewer intersecting barriers. Hostile school climates are associated with higher rates of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, absenteeism, lower academic achievement, and increased dropout risk. Black LGBTQ+/SGL youth also face disproportionate suspension, expulsion, and school-based arrests, compounding longstanding racial disparities in school discipline. In January 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14190, Ending Radical Indoctrination in K–12 Schooling, directing federal agencies to review funding for “gender” and “discriminatory equity” ideology instruction, minimizing and discouraging the discussion of LGBTQ+ identities and race in classrooms. The administration is pursuing restructuring of the Department of Education, including transferring civil rights enforcement responsibilities to the Department of Justice and moving special education oversight to the Department of Health and Human Services. Advocates have expressed concern that these changes could complicate enforcement for students facing discrimination based on race, disability, sex, or LGBTQI identity. Administration officials have stated that the changes are intended to reduce bureaucracy and return greater authority to states, despite some states lacking any civil rights protections or complaint processes of their own. Evidence consistently identifies family acceptance and affirmation as one of the strongest protective factors for Black LGBTQ+/SGL youth. Protective relationships—including caring parents, supportive relatives, positive trusted peers, and affirming community adults—improve outcomes for LGBTQ+

youth. Correct use of names and pronouns, LGBTQ-affirming schools, trusted teachers and counselors, access to culturally responsive mental health care, connection to Black LGBTQ+/SGL communities, participation in affirming faith or community organizations when available, and chosen family networks for youth lacking family acceptance can buffer the effects of discrimination and improve resilience among Black LGBTQ+/SGL youth, particularly when family acceptance is limited.

2026 Priorities •

Require the collection of education data disaggregated by race, sexual orientation, and gender identity while protecting student privacy.

•

Strengthen anti-bullying and nondiscrimination policies that explicitly address race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability.

•

Expand culturally responsive school-based mental health services.

•

Invest in educator training on racial equity, LGBTQ+ inclusion, and trauma-informed practices.

Increase access to school counselors, social workers, affinity groups, and mentoring programs.

•

Support family affirmation initiatives that educate parents and caregivers on the protective effects of acceptance.

Monitor school discipline for intersectional disparities affecting Black LGBTQ+/SGL students.

Resources • • • • •

We Are Family: Chosen and Created Families as a Protective Factor Against Racialized Trauma and Anti-LGBTQ Oppression Among African American Sexual and Gender Minority Youth, (Journal of GLBT Family Studies). Interpersonal Protective Factors for LGBTQ+ Youth at Multiple Intersecting Social Identities and Positions, (Annals of LGBTQ Public and Population Health). All Black Lives Matter: Mental Health of Black LGBTQ Youth, (The Trevor Project). Executive Order Fact Sheet: Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling, (Congressional Black Caucus Foundation). Impact of Executive Order Imposing Restrictions on Transgender Students in K-12 Schools, (UCLA).

Healthcare 2025 Playbook Issue Areas:

2026 Playbook Addendum Issue Areas:

• • • •

•

Healthcare Access and Coverage Black Maternal Health Environmental Justice Food Insecurity and Food Deserts

• •

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act and Healthcare – NEW Healthcare Technology and Digital Equity – NEW Black LGBTQ+/SGL Health Disparities – NEW

Since the release of the Black Policy Playbook, the healthcare landscape has continued to evolve, creating new challenges and opportunities for advancing health equity. While each of the policy areas from the original Playbook remain important issues, this addendum section expands the policy agenda to address emerging issues that have become increasingly central to the health and well-being of Black communities. These include the growing role of digital health and artificial intelligence in healthcare delivery, significant changes to public health insurance programs and coverage protections, and the unique health disparities experienced by Black LGBTQ+/Same-Gender Loving (SGL) communities. As technology transforms how care is accessed and delivered, and federal and state policy decisions reshape the healthcare system, advancing health equity requires ensuring that innovation is accessible and accountable, coverage remains affordable and continuous, and healthcare systems recognize and address the intersecting identities and experiences that shape health outcomes.

Healthcare

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act and Healthcare On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) into law — the largest rollback of federal healthcare support in American history. The law cuts more than $1 trillion from Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) over the next decade while extending tax cuts that disproportionately benefit wealthy Americans. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that between 10 and 15 million people will lose health insurance coverage by 2034. This is not a deficit reduction. It is a transfer of resources away from Americans who need healthcare most. The law dismantles coverage through multiple mechanisms. Beginning in 2027, Medicaid expansion enrollees ages 19 to 64 must document at least 80 hours per month of work, job training, or community service or they will lose coverage. When Arkansas implemented a similar requirement, thousands lost coverage because of paperwork failures and reporting errors. The OBBBA also requires states to redetermine Medicaid eligibility every six months instead of annually, eliminates provisional eligibility, and allows states to charge up to $35 in Medicaid copayments. It also lets enhanced ACA premium tax credits expire, causing premium spikes for 20 million marketplace enrollees and an estimated 4.2 million people will lose coverage by 2027. Black Americans bear a disproportionate share of these consequences. They are enrolled in Medicaid at higher rates than the general population, rely heavily on ACA marketplace coverage in Southern states, and experience higher rates of chronic conditions requiring consistent care. The OBBBA’s work requirements, more frequent eligibility reviews, and enrollment barriers interact with structural inequities in employment, housing, and digital access, making compliance harder for Black families. As a result, Black communities will lose coverage at higher rates, delay or forgo care, and experience worse health outcomes. Black women face particular risk. Medicaid covers nearly half of all births in the United States, making continuous coverage essential during pregnancy and the postpartum period. More frequent eligibility redeterminations mean

Black women navigating caregiving responsibilities, gig work, or limited digital access could lose coverage at their most vulnerable moments. The law also excludes certain lawfully present immigrants from ACA marketplace subsidies and, in some cases, Medicare, disproportionately affecting immigrant women of color. Access to healthcare is not a privilege. It is a prerequisite for work, family, civic participation, and life. The One Big Beautiful Bill reshapes who in this country gets to be healthy. Ensuring that Black communities, Black women, and other historically marginalized groups can access affordable, continuous, and dignified healthcare is a civil rights, economic justice, and moral imperative.

2026 Priorities •

Repeal or significantly amend the OBBBA’s Medicaid work requirements, six-month redetermination mandates, and eligibility financing restrictions.

•

Restore provisional Medicaid eligibility to prevent coverage gaps for newborns, postpartum mothers, and families with pending paperwork.

•

Restore and make permanent the enhanced ACA premium tax credits to protect marketplace coverage for low- and moderate-income families.

•

Implement the Medicare Savings Program rule to ensure low-income seniors can access and afford Medicare coverage.

•

Ensure that Medicaid enrollment and redetermination processes are accessible in-person, by phone, and in multiple languages, rather than relying on digitalonly systems that exclude the digitally underserved.

•

Expand reimbursement and support for community health workers, doulas, patient navigators, and digital navigators who assist Black families in accessing and maintaining healthcare coverage.

•

Reinstate ACA marketplace subsidy eligibility for lawfully present immigrants, including refugees, asylees, and individuals with Temporary Protected Status.

•

Protect Medicaid from state-level cuts triggered by federal funding reductions.

•

Oppose state implementation of Medicaid work requirements that result in coverage losses for Black families, caregivers, people with disabilities, and working people with unpredictable incomes.

Resources • • •

Health Provisions in the 2025 Federal Budget Reconciliation Law, (KFF). A Closer Look at the Work Requirement Provisions in the 2025 Federal Budget Reconciliation Law, (KFF). Understanding Medicaid Cost Sharing and Policy Changes from the 2025 Reconciliation Law, (KFF).

Healthcare

Healthcare Technology and Digital Equity Healthcare is increasingly delivered through telehealth, patient portals, remote monitoring, and artificial intelligence (AI). Yet many Black communities continue to face barriers to broadband, digital devices, and digital literacy, limiting access to essential healthcare services. As healthcare moves online, reliable internet access is no longer simply a technology issue. It is a healthcare equity issue that directly affects maternal health, chronic disease management, preventative care, and access to quality care. AI is also transforming healthcare through clinical decision-making and insurance processes. However, research has shown that some AI systems can underestimate the healthcare needs of Black patients, reinforcing existing disparities rather than reducing them. Expanding digital access while ensuring AI is fair, transparent, and accountable must be a national priority if we are serious about achieving health equity.

2026 Priorities •

Expand affordable broadband access in underserved urban, rural, Tribal, and marginalized communities, and permanently authorize Medicare/Medicaid telehealth flexibilities.

•

Expand telehealth and remote monitoring for conditions disproportionately affecting Black communities — hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and maternal health — including prenatal, postpartum, and behavioral health services.

•

Establish federal standards and oversight to prevent algorithmic discrimination in healthcare AI and protect patient data privacy.

•

Increase funding for digital literacy programs and expand reimbursement for community health workers, doulas, and digital navigators who help patients access care.

Resources • • • •

Mapping Broadband Health in America, (Federal Communications Commission, Connect2HealthFCC). Focus on Broadband and Maternal Health, (Federal Communications Commission, Connect2HealthFCC). Dissecting Racial Bias in an Algorithm Used to Manage the Health of Populations, (Science). HHS IT Coordinator Researching Algorithmic Bias and Implications for Health Equity, (FedScoop).

Healthcare

Black LGBTQ+/SGL Health Disparities Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and intersex (LGBQI) women face disparities in cancer screenings and reproductive healthcare. Bisexual and lesbian women receive breast and cervical cancer screenings at lower rates than heterosexual women. Black women are more likely than white women to die of pregnancy-related causes. Compounded racism, transmisia, and heterosexism increase health risks for Black LGBQI women and transgender and non-binary people. Barriers also extend to fertility care because of cost, insurance restrictions, and disproportionate scrutiny of Black queer parents. Intersex people are born with variations in sex characteristics that do not fit typical definitions of male or female bodies. Healthcare concerns include the long-term effects of childhood medical interventions, hormone management, fertility, bone health, psychological support, and the need for individualized care. The CDC reports that in 2022, 46% of transgender people newly diagnosed with HIV were Black and were less likely to be retained in care or achieve viral suppression. Transgender people of color are three times as likely as the general population to live in poverty, while chronic minority stress compounds mental and cardiovascular health risks. Healthcare, including cancer and reproductive screenings, should be based on the organs present and individual sexual practices rather than assumptions about identity. Gender-affirming care remains under legislative attack. Twenty-six states ban it for youth, affecting 38% of transgender youth nationwide. Only 25 states and the District of Columbia include gender-affirming care under Medicaid, while seven expressly exclude it. Twenty percent of Black transgender people are uninsured, and 56% of all transgender people nationally have no shield law to protect against criminalization for accessing healthcare.

Black GBQI+/SGL people carry some of the starkest HIV disparities in the country. Among boys and young men ages 13–24, Black GBQ+/SGL youth account for 47% of new HIV diagnoses. This gap stems from stigma, discrimination, poverty, medical mistrust, limited access to HIV prevention, and underfunded prevention efforts. Gay and bisexual men have substantially higher rates of persistent HPV infection, increasing the risk of anal, oropharyngeal, and penile cancers, as well as Kaposi sarcoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. While these issues vary, Black LGBTQ+/SGL community members experience the same structural failure: health systems designed around a single axis—race or LGBTQ+ identity— that consistently overlook those living at the intersection of both. Nearly half (48%) of LGBTQ+ adults report having at least one disability, underscoring the need for intersectional data collection. The lack of reliable national data for Black LGBTQI+/SGL people continues to limit efforts to identify and address disparities across intersecting identities.

2026 Priorities

•

Direct funds and research dollars toward closing the data gap on Black LGBTQ+/ SGL-specific outcomes across HIV, cancer, gestational health, mental health care, substance use, and reproductive health care (including gender-affirming care).

•

Increase access and affordability for HPV vaccination, HIV prevention and treatment medications like PrEP, antiretroviral therapy, and PEP, and culturally responsive cancer screening for Black gay, queer, and bisexual men as well as transgender people.

•

Mandate sexual orientation and gender identity data collection cross-tabulated by race in federally funded health systems.

•

Fund integrated (not siloed) HIV, mental health, and substance use care models for Black gay/bisexual youth, men, and Black transgender people.

•

Support the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act with explicit sexual orientation and gender identity data provisions and inclusion of intersex and transgender men.

•

Fund culturally competent provider training across all four areas — HIV care, cancer, reproductive care (including genderaffirming and intersex-related care), and mental health care — emphasizing shared identity as a documented driver of care adherence.

•

Oppose restrictions on gender-affirming care and Medicaid coverage, given Black transgender people’s outsized reliance on public insurance.

•

Support state Medicaid expansion and shield-law campaigns, prioritized in states with large undercover Black transgender populations.

•

Advocate for family-regulation reform addressing racialized reporting disparities and bias against nontraditional families.

Resources • • • • • • • •

Understanding the Well-Being of LGBTQI+ Populations, (National Academies Press). Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Based Disparities in Colorectal, Cervical, and Breast Cancer Screening in the United States, (Cancer). Health-related Quality of Life Among Black Sexual Minority Women, (National Library of Medicine), (National Library of Medicine). Intersex FAQ, (interACT). Guidelines for the Primary and Gender-Affirming Care of Transgender and Gender Nonbinary People, (UCSF Gender Affirming Health Program). Healthcare Laws and Policies, (Movement Advancement Project). Sexual and Gender Minority Research, (National Cancer Institute). Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Based Disparities in Colorectal, Cervical, and Breast Cancer Screening in the United States, (Journal of American Cancer Society).

Criminal Legal System Reform 2025 Playbook Issue Areas:

2026 Playbook Addendum Issue Areas:

• • •

• •

Racial Disparities in Policing Racial Disparities in Incarceration Impact of the Juvenile Justice System on Black Youth Decriminalization and Legalization of Cannabis Reimagining Public Safety in Black

• • • •

Racial Disparities in Policing – UPDATE Racial Disparities in US Prisons – UPDATE Impact of the Juvenile Justice System on Black Youth – UPDATE Federal Cannabis Policy – UPDATE Reimagining Public Safety in Black Communities – UPDATE Surveillance Technologies – NEW Racial Discrimination in the Death Penalty – NEW

Since the release of the Black Policy Playbook, the criminal legal landscape has continued to evolve, creating new challenges and opportunities for advancing racial justice and public safety. This addendum updates the policy agenda outlined in the original Playbook by examining the continued impact of racial disparities in policing and incarceration, the treatment of Black youth within the criminal legal system, and the need for community-centered approaches to public safety, while also adding new areas of focus, including surveillance technologies and racial discrimination in the death penalty. As federal, state, and local policies reshape approaches to law enforcement, criminal punishment, and public safety, advancing a more equitable criminal legal system requires strengthening accountability, reducing unnecessary criminalization, protecting constitutional rights, and investing in solutions that address the underlying conditions that contribute to harm while supporting the safety and well-being of Black communities.

Criminal Legal System Reform

Racial Disparities in Policing For many individuals encounters with law enforcement can be the entry point to the criminal legal system. American policing is rooted in slave patrols in the South from the 1770s. Even with this legacy and a national reckoning with the biased policing of Black individuals, in the wake of Geroge Floyd’s murder in 2020, Black individuals are still disproportionately stopped, searched, arrested, subjected to force and killed by law enforcement compared with white counterparts. According to the Center for Policing Equity, Black individuals are disproportionately stopped for non-safety reasons like a broken taillight or license or registration check. Pretextual stops like these, searches and uses of force can lead to fines and fees, increased likelihood of physical and mental health issues, increased negative attitudes towards law enforcement and risk arrest and incarceration. Some towns with predominant Black populations in Georgia and Lexington, Mississippi were heavily reliant on fines and fees, disproportionately from Black residents as a source of revenue. Discriminatory application of loitering, sex work, and HIV criminalization laws has created additional reasons for Black LGBTQ+/Same-Gender-Loving (SGL) people to be profiled, stopped, and imprisoned by law enforcement. In 2018, under New York’s repealed “Loitering for the Purpose of Prostitution” statute, 91% of those arrested were Black and Latinx. The statute criminalized behaviors such as repeatedly attempting to stop or wave at a vehicle or attempting to talk to other individuals on the street. Black LGBTQ+/SGL people, especially women, receive longer sentences than their white peers. 2025 also brought an increased presence of federal law enforcement to cities throughout the U.S. The American Immigration Council reports a 600% increase of at large arrests by federal law enforcement officers like Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE). Lawsuits were filed in multiple jurisdictions documenting ICE and Customs and Border Patrol agents using a person’s perceived race or ethnicity as a basis for an investigatory stop. ACLU documented 437 incidents where racial profiling likely occurred since January 2025 by immigration enforcement agents. Despite falling crime rates in cities across the county, starting in June 2025, National Guard troops have been deployed to cities with significant Black

populations and Black leadership to purportedly address crime. A Center for American Progress report cites the deployment of the National Guard could cost taxpayers $1.7 billion by the end of 2026, has not been effective at reducing already falling violent crime and has been widely unpopular. In addition to the presence of National Guard troops and other federal law enforcement in D.C., through disapproval resolutions in the 119th Congress, there have been more than 16 acts seeking to undo policies passed by the D.C. City Council a significant increase in D.C. disapproval resolutions from prior Congresses.

2026 Priorities •

•

Pass legislation to hold law enforcement from any level of government accountable when they violate the constitutional rights of individuals in the U.S., like the Ending Qualified Immunity Act, the Bivens Act, the Constitutional Accountability Act, and the End Racial and Religious Profiling Act (ERRPA). Decriminalize sex work and repeal antiloitering and HIV criminalization laws that overwhelmingly target Black members of the LGBTQ+/SGL community. Decriminalize low-level quality of life offenses associated with poverty and homelessness caused by family rejection, such as sleeping in public, loitering, disorderly conduct, and panhandling.

•

Increase transparency by requiring law enforcement agencies to collect and publicly report data on all stops, searches, and arrests, and deaths in custody disaggregated by race, gender, and ethnicity.

•

Reject efforts to undermine D.C. policing and other justice reform laws, and support D.C. Statehood legislation.

•

Pass legislation to curb militarized policing, end the transfer of military weapons to state and local police agencies through the Department of Defense 1033 program and other such programs.

Prevent or repeal laws that criminalize health care providers and families of trans children for providing necessary and lifesaving gender affirming care and bills that would criminalize drag performances.

Resources • • • •

Qualified Immunity FAQ, (Legal Defense Fund). Regressive Policing Under President Trump, (American Civil Liberties Union). Compounding Anti-Black Racial Disparities in Police Stops, (Center for Policing Equity). Incarcerated LGBTQ Adults and Youth, (The Sentencing Project).

Criminal Legal System Reform

Racial Disparities in U.S. Prisons The United States continues to rely on incarceration at a scale unmatched by nearly every other democratic nation, and Black communities in America continue to bear a disproportionate share of its human and economic costs. Although the nation’s prison population has declined from its historic peak, racial disparities remain deeply embedded throughout the criminal legal system. These disparities are not the result of differences in criminal conduct alone. Rather, they reflect decades of policy choices that concentrated law enforcement in Black communities, imposed disproportionately severe penalties for certain offenses, and created barriers to successful reentry that perpetuate cycles of incarceration and poverty. Black people represent approximately 14 percent of the U.S. population but remain substantially overrepresented in prisons and jails nationwide. Recent estimates indicate that one in every 81 Black adults is incarcerated in a state prison, and Black Americans continue to be imprisoned at several times the rate of white Americans. While incarceration rates have declined for all racial groups over the past two decades, the legacy of mass incarceration continues to destabilize families and diminish Black wealth, and undermine civic and electoral participation in Black communities. Racial disparities are also evident within the federal criminal legal system. The United States Sentencing Commission has found that, after controlling for relevant legal factors, Black men receive sentences that are, on average, 13.4 percent longer than similarly situated white men, while Hispanic men also receive longer sentences. The harms of incarceration extend far beyond confinement itself. People in prison experience elevated rates of chronic illness, mental health conditions, trauma, and premature death. Many correctional facilities continue to struggle with inadequate medical and mental health care and violence. Prison labor remains another significant source of racial and economic inequality. Coercive prison labor systems in the U.S. trace their origins to the exception clause of the Thirteenth Amendment, which permits involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. Modern prison labor often exposes Black

incarcerated workers to hazardous conditions while denying them meaningful safety precautions, prevailing wages, or opportunities to build economic stability upon release. Reducing racial disparities in incarceration requires more than reforming individual policies. It requires reorienting federal public safety policy away from excessive punishment and toward fairness, accountability, and opportunity. Congress should continue reducing unnecessary incarceration through sentencing reform, expand opportunities for earned release and second chances, strengthen oversight of prison conditions, eliminate exploitative prison labor practices, invest in rehabilitation and successful reentry, and remove collateral consequences that prevent formerly incarcerated individuals from fully participating in civic and economic life. Building safer communities depends not on expanding imprisonment, but on ensuring that every person has the opportunity to return home, contribute to their community, and thrive.

2026 Priorities •

Reduce mass incarceration through sentencing reform.

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End exploitative prison labor and extend workplace protections.

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Reject proposals that establish new or increased criminal penalties and mandatory sentencing.

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Invest in supportive services, education, and reentry in prisons.

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Expand earned time and second-chance opportunities.

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Remove collateral consequences that impede housing, employment, and civic and voting participation.

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Strengthen state and federal oversight of prison conditions.

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Increase transparency through improved federal prison data collection.

Resources • • • •

Mass Incarceration Trends, (The Sentencing Project). Prison Reform in the United States, (The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law). Captive Labor: Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers, (American Civil Liberties Union and University of Chicago School of Law Global Human Rights Clinic). Voting Rights in the Era of Mass Incarceration: A Primer, (The Sentencing Project).

Criminal Legal System Reform

Impact of the Juvenile Justice System on Black Youth Like Black adults, Black youth continue to be more likely to be arrested, prosecuted as adults, and sentenced to adult prison compared to their white counterparts for similar offenses, contributing to the school-to-prison pipeline. The presence of law enforcement in schools can lead to the criminalization of normal adolescent behavior especially for young people of color, LGBTQ youth, and students with disabilities. In the 2017-2018 school year, Black students were arrested at rates twice as high as white students and those numbers were even higher for Black students with a disability. Students exposed to high levels of policing also perform worse on standardized tests and are more likely to be absent from school. Since 2023 Black youth were 5.6 times as likely to be in juvenile facilities as their white peers, the highest the disparity has been since data was collected. Black youth are disproportionately charged as adults. Take Maryland, a state with one of the nation’s highest rates for charging youth as adults. In fiscal year 2025, Black youth comprised 73% of youth charged as adults statewide, well above their percentage in the state’s youth population of 30%, while white children comprised 20% of youth charged as adults. More than 93% of youth arrests in D.C. in the first half of 2025 were of Black youth. In 2025, Congress sought to repeal or amend D.C. youth sentencing and second look laws for young adults. These D.C. laws give judges the ability to sentence below the mandatory range for certain offenses, and the ability to review lengthy sentences and grant sentence reductions if appropriate. According to the Sentencing Project, in 2011 Black youth were staggeringly 269% more likely to be arrested for violating youth curfew ordinances than their white peers. A 2016 analysis of 12 studies found juvenile curfews are ineffective at reducing crime and victimization.

2026 Priorities •

Pass legislation to invest in school counselors, social workers, and other trauma informed support personnel through legislation like the Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act.

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Raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction to ensure that young offenders are placed in the juvenile justice system rather than being automatically transferred to adult court.

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Reject efforts to roll back D.C. juvenile justice second look laws for young adults, like the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act and Second Look Amendment Act, and efforts to charge youth as young as 14 as adults for certain offenses.

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Restrict the use of youth curfews.

Resources • •

Injustice in the Lowest Courts: How Municipal Courts Rob America’s Youth, (Juvenile Law Center). Youth Courts vs. Adult Courts: Why the Juvenile Justice System Works Better, (The Sentencing Project).

Criminal Legal System Reform

Federal Cannabis Policy For decades, federal cannabis policy has functioned as a driver of racial inequality. Although Black and white Americans use cannabis at comparable rates, Black people are nearly four times more likely than white people to be arrested for cannabis possession nationally. A subsequent national analysis by the ACLU found that these disparities persisted even as many states legalized cannabis. Between 2010 and 2018, law enforcement made more than six million cannabis arrests, and Black people remained 3.64 times more likely than white people to be arrested for cannabis possession. Legalization alone has not eliminated discriminatory enforcement because racial disparities often arise from discretionary policing practices, including traffic stops and pretextual searches. Across the country, routine traffic stops have long served as one of the principal points of contact between law enforcement and Black motorists. Cannabis possession has been one of the most common justifications for these vehicle encounters, exposing millions of individuals to unnecessary police contact and increasing the likelihood of arrest, use of force, and collateral consequences. Reducing unnecessary traffic stops and ending criminal penalties for cannabis possession are essential components of racial justice and ensuring accountability in policing. States have demonstrated that cannabis legalization can be paired with policies designed to repair some of the harms caused by prohibition. Many states now provide automatic record sealing or expungement for certain cannabis offenses, prioritize business licenses for individuals and communities disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs, establish community reinvestment funds, and offer low-interest loans and technical assistance programs to support minority-owned cannabis businesses. Federal law continues to lag behind the states, but legislation such as the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act would mirror the reparative policies and racial justice components of many state law reforms. Federal reform efforts must address equity issues and cannot focus solely on commercial profits and regulations.

Federal and state cannabis criminalization has created lasting economic and social harms to Black families by limiting educational opportunities, employment, housing, voting rights, and wealth creation for the disproportionate number of Black people who have been arrested and convicted for cannabis related charges. As public support for the legalization of cannabis grows and states build regulated markets, Congress has an opportunity to end the federal prohibition, protect the civil rights of Black motorists, expand civil liberties for Black people with cannabis convictions, and expand economic opportunity for communities that bore the greatest costs of criminalization.

2026 Priorities •

Remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act.

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Automatically expunge eligible federal cannabis convictions and provide resentencing and release opportunities.

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Protect state medical and adultuse cannabis programs from federal interference.

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Expand access to banking, grants, and capital for social equity cannabis businesses.

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Invest cannabis revenues in communities disproportionately harmed by the War on Drugs.

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Encourage states to eliminate cannabisbased pretextual traffic stops and strengthen transparent data collection on racial disparities in traffic and cannabis enforcement.

Resources • •

The War On Marijuana In Black and White, (American Civil Liberties Union). A Tale of Two Countries: Racially Targeted Arrests in the Era of Marijuana Reform, (American Civil Liberties Union).

Criminal Legal System Reform

Reimagining Public Safety in Black Communities Black communities continue to see an underinvestment in economic resources and disproportionate policing. Studies show that law enforcement spend more time policing Black and Latino neighborhoods than white neighborhoods with similar socioeconomic makeup and homicide rates. This presence leads to more arrests, one 2025 study found a 57% higher arrest rate in more Black neighborhoods influenced by this presence. In 2024 according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty gap slightly increased from the prior year with 18.2 percent of Black people in the U.S. living below the poverty line compared with 7.7 percent of non-Hispanic white people. In 2025 Congress approved a reconciliation package that made significant cuts to safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP. Communities across the U.S. continue to embrace unarmed specialized responders for various issues that have historically been addressed by law enforcement such as lowlevel traffic enforcement, mental health crisis response, gun violence prevention, or even to resolve disputes among neighbors. Black men with perceived mental illness or experiencing a mental health crisis who were killed by police were more likely to be unarmed than white males with perceived mental illness who were killed by police. Community-based solutions that lead with a public health approach can help provide culturally competent care and increase public safety.

2026 Priorities •

Invest in mental health crisis response teams that do not rely on law enforcement to respond to situations involving individuals experiencing mental health crises.

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Pass The People’s Response Act to center an inclusive, holistic, and health-centered approach to public safety by creating a Division on Community Safety within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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Pass legislation to provide federal grants for community violence intervention through the Department of Health and Human Services, like the Break the Cycle of Violence Act.

Resources • • • • •

Framework for Public Safety, (Legal Defense Fund). Advancing An Alternative to Police: Community-Based Services for Black People with Mental Illness, (Legal Defense Fund and the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law). Nationwide Map of Community Responder Programs, (Law Enforcement Action Partnership). Dispatching Community Responders to 911 Calls, (Center for American Progress). Safe Roads for All: A community-centered public health approach to traffic safety, (Thurgood Marshall Institute).

Criminal Legal System Reform

Surveillance Technologies The rapid expansion and use of surveillance technologies by local, state, and federal law enforcement creates increased risks of harm to Black people and communities. Law enforcement agencies across the country now use facial recognition technology (FRT), DNA technologies, AI-powered social media monitoring, automatic license plate readers (ALPR), and algorithm-based risk assessment tools, incorporating this information into predictive policing systems. Agencies also acquire personal data through private vendors and federal, state, and local agencies, often without warrants, public oversight, or democratic accountability. Surveillance technologies are disproportionately concentrated in neighborhoods with larger Black and Latinx populations. Automated license plate readers, gunshot detection systems, predictive policing tools, and camera networks are frequently deployed in communities already subject to heightened police activity. These technologies can reinforce existing patterns of disproportionate policing, creating a cycle in which historically surveilled communities receive even greater law enforcement attention regardless of actual crime rates. Surveillance technology within the criminal legal system exacerbates structural inequities, including through documented inaccuracies in facial recognition systems. These tools frequently misidentify individuals with darker skin or features associated with Black people, Asian people, women, and transgender or nonbinary people, leading to false matches, wrongful arrests, and detention. Even with improved accuracy, existing racial bias in law enforcement cannot be eliminated. Black Americans are disproportionately represented in state and federal forensic DNA databases due to longstanding disparities in policing, arrest, and incarceration. Law enforcement agencies also conduct familial searches using partial genetic matches, extending government surveillance beyond individuals to entire families and lineages. For Black communities, this raises significant Fourth Amendment, privacy, and equal protection concerns. Personal data, including sensitive data, is shared through real time crime centers, fusion centers, private vendors, and data-sharing platforms that perpetuate racially biased surveillance and policing. This can include drivers license records, Medicaid information, criminal investigative information, and much more. Additionally, when state or local law enforcement partner with federal law enforcement through task forces, they serve as a conduit for sharing data on local residents with federal agencies and vice versa. Joint Terrorism Task

forces have circulated intelligence about Black activists, including what the FBI called “Black Identity Extremists” to describe Black activists motivated to respond to “police brutality against African Americans.” Communities should not have to sacrifice constitutional rights in exchange for public safety. As surveillance technologies continue to evolve, federal policy must ensure innovation does not come at the expense of constitutional rights, racial equity, and democratic accountability.

2026 Priorities •

Enact a Federal, state, and local moratorium on the use of invasive technologies such as facial recognition, and automatic license plate readers by law and immigration enforcement agencies.

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Enact strict warrant requirements for sensitive data such as for DNA collection, due to the sensitive nature of medical, familial, and biological information it can reveal. Increased transparency on law enforcement use of DNA technology and law enforcement use of familial DNA searches and commercial databases.

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Restrict government acquisition of personal data from the for-profit data broker industry.

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Provide public notice to communities and the opportunity for public input as new surveillance technologies are adopted by state or local law enforcement departments. Conduct independent audits focused on civil rights, civil liberties, and racial justice before and after technology is adopted.

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Strengthening oversight of federal grants that fund surveillance systems and requiring independent civil rights impact assessments before new technologies are implemented.

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Congress should prohibit DHS and DOJ from conditioning grants on sharing data with federal law enforcement, intelligence, and security agencies, or otherwise participating in federal security programs.

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Condition federal public safety grants on compliance with constitutional privacy protections and anti-discrimination standards.

Resources • • • • • •

Surveillance, Profits and the Police: Implications of the Growing role of For-Profit Companies in the Heart of American Police Departments, (American Civil Liberties Union). Federal Study Confirms Racial Bias of Many Facial-Recognition Systems, Casts Doubt on their Expanding Use, (The Washington Post). More than a Dozen Wrongful Arrests Due to Police Reliance on Facial Recognition Technology, (American Civil Liberties Union). Why Oakland Cut Its Ties with a Racist FBI Program, (Asian Law Caucus). Atlas of Surveillance: Documenting Police Tech in Our Communities with Open Source Research, (Electronic Frontier Foundation). Free Cities, Safety over Surveillance, (Legal Defense Fund).

Criminal Legal System Reform

Racial Discrimination in the Death Penalty The application of the death penalty in the United States has long been inflicted upon Black individuals in a disproportionate manner, from charging decisions to jury selection, trial proceeding, sentencing and–who is ultimately executed. Black individuals make up 40% of the death row population despite being only about 12% of the 18 years old and older national population. The requirement that every individual be “tried by a jury of their peers” is as fundamental to our democracy as “one person one vote.” However, this remains illusory because prosecutors continue to disproportionately exclude Black prospective jurors through their exercise of peremptory strikes. In capital trials, in order to serve on a jury, an individual must attest that they are willing to impose the death penalty before they can serve on the jury to be “death qualified.” A 2004 survey found that 41.7% of Black respondents supported the death penalty compared with 72.5% of white respondents. Death qualification compounded with prosecutorial bias, too often leads to the exclusion of prospective Black jurors in capital cases, undermining this constitutional guarantee. While several states have or are seeking to expand the list of individuals eligible for the death penalty based on characteristics of the accused or the victim and have expanded methods of execution, death row populations across the country is the lowest it has been since the 1980s. The Thurgood

Marshall Institute reports that the removal of individuals through resentencing, judicial reversals, and declining imposition of new death sentences is helping to shrink the death row population. July 2, 2026 marked 50 years since the return of capital punishment after the U.S. Supreme Court decided Gregg v. Georgia, ending the first and only nationwide moratorium on the death penalty in Furman v. Georgia (1972). Justice Potter Stewart wrote in Furman that death sentences were imposed so inconsistently it was like being “struck by lightning”. Today the death penalty is still arbitrary, unfairly visited upon by those with the least means, applied with racial bias, and fails to serve as a deterrent. And the risk of executing an innocent person can only be avoided by ending the punishment all together. Of the 202 individuals wrongly convicted and exonerated from death rows across the U.S. since Furman over 53% are Black.

2026 Priorities •

Pass legislation to abolish the death penalty in all jurisdictions that maintain this punishment.

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Defeat proposals to expand the death penalty.

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Enact laws to prevent individuals from being disqualified from serving on capital juries because of their opposition to the death penalty.

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Pass or strengthen Racial Justice Acts (RJA) allowing claims showing racial bias in jury selection charging, or sentencing, with retroactive application.

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Fund and expand access to postconviction DNA testing and innocence review procedures in all serious felony cases.

Resources • • • • •

Death Row USA, (Legal Defense Fund). Fatal Flaws: Innocence, Race, and Wrongful Convictions, (American Civil Liberties Union). Fatal Flaws: Revealing the Racial and Religious Gerrymandering of the Capital Jury, (American Civil Liberties Union). Enduring Injustice: the Persistence of Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Death Penalty, (Death Penalty Information Center). Race and the Death Penalty, (National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers).

Technology and Telecommunications 2025 Playbook Issue Areas:

2026 Playbook Addendum Issue Areas:

• • •

• •

Broadband Access Broadband Affordability Black Representation in the Tech Sector Racial Bias in Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies Content Moderation

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Broadband Access – UPDATE Broadband Affordability – UPDATE Racial Bias in Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies – UPDATE Content Moderation & Black LGBTQ+ Youth – UPDATE

Where the Playbook chronicled policy progress towards equity in access to technology and AI regulation, the second Trump administration has rolled back many of the initiatives that would expand and protect Black communities in this rapidly changing tech landscape. Low income and rural Black households will be impacted by the rollbacks in funding for expanded broadband access. At the same time, Black Americans need to be empowered to take advantage of the opportunities created by the rapid evolution of AI and its capabilities. Simultaneously, there is an urgent need for lawmakers to protect communities dealing with data centers being planned and built in their backyards. This technology has repeatedly shown to amplify and duplicate bias against Black people. AI and data centers have presented environmental, economic, and equity challenges that require lawmakers to put measures in place to address current problems and act proactively to protect Black Americans from further harm. When putting content safeguards in place to moderate content to protect communities from misinformation, it is important to ensure young Black people can exercise their free expression and that Black LGBTQ+/Same-Gender-Loving (SGL) youth will continue to have access to crucial, supportive information dealing with identity, reproductive health, and other topics that are essential to young people’s wellbeing.

Technology and Telecommunications

Broadband Access Recent federal policy changes have introduced new uncertainty for efforts to close the digital divide. Although the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program continues to provide funding to expand broadband infrastructure, the Trump administration’s revisions to the program shifted its priorities by adopting a technologyneutral approach, removing certain affordability and regulatory requirements, and requiring states to revise previously approved plans. At the same time, the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) decision to eliminate E-Rate support for school bus Wi-Fi and mobile hotspots reduces another important tool for connecting students without reliable home internet access. Together, these changes raise concerns that existing disparities in broadband access, affordability, and digital opportunity may persist, particularly for lowincome and rural Black households.

2026 Priorities •

Reinstate full funding, passed by Congress via the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and fully implement the Broadband Access and Digital Equity components of the bill that allocate funding to provide high-speed internet in unserved and underserved communities to close the digital divide.

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Increase access to high-speed internet infrastructure build-out and upgrade measures by supporting programs such as BEAD and broadband affordability measures, including the Affordable Connectivity Program, that allow low-income and underserved households to access broadband services at higher qualities and lower rates

Resources • • • •

NTIA Restructures BEAD Program with Major Broadband Funding Changes, (Wiley). One Year After BEAD Restructured, Some States Still Can’t Access Infrastructure Funding, (Broadband Breakfast). FCC Removes School Bus WiFi Hotspots from E-rate, (K-12 Dive). Dollars to Megabits, You May Be Paying 400 Times As Much As Your Neighbor for Internet Service, (The Markup).

Technology and Telecommunications

Broadband Affordability Although the Trump administration canceled the Digital Equity Act Grant Program in 2025, recent litigation has altered the program’s trajectory. In July 2026, a federal district court ruled that the administration lacked the authority to terminate a congressionally authorized grant program simply because it disagreed with Congress’s policy choices. The court ordered that the program may proceed but held that race and ethnicity cannot be considered in awarding competitive grants, relying on the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision ending race-conscious college admissions. While the ruling preserves federal support for digital inclusion efforts, it also reshapes how those funds may be distributed. For Black communities, the decision underscores both the continued importance of sustained investments in digital skills, device access, and broadband adoption, and the evolving legal constraints on race-conscious approaches to addressing persistent disparities in digital opportunity. At the same time, the future of broadband affordability remains uncertain. Although the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Universal Service Fund (USF) in FCC v. Consumers’ Research, the decision resolved only the legal question of whether Congress had improperly delegated its authority to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The Court concluded that Congress had provided sufficient guidance for the FCC to administer the program and that the agency’s oversight of the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), which collects and distributes USF contributions, satisfied constitutional requirements. While the ruling preserved the legal foundation of the nation’s primary universal service program, it did not address broader policy questions about whether the USF is adequately structured to meet today’s broadband needs or provide meaningful affordability support for low-income households.

2026 Priorities •

Refund and expand the Affordable Connectivity Program or create a similar subsidy to make broadband services affordable for low-income households struggling to maintain their internet services

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Take steps to modernize the USF, including establishing a permanent broadband affordability benefit

Resources • • •

Judge Reinstates Digital Equity Grants, (Route Fifty). Supreme Court Upholds Universal Service Fund, 6-3, (Broadband Breakfast). Every State Identifies Broadband Affordability as Primary Barrier to Closing Digital Divide, (Pew).

Technology and Telecommunications

Racial Bias in Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies Large Language Models (LLMs) can generate biased content that harms people, excluding them from wealth-building opportunities or providing them with inaccurate information. AI systems used in critical areas of life, such as hiring, lending, housing, healthcare, and law enforcement, make uncontestable decisions that often discriminate against Black individuals. Black people can therefore be systematically denied access to opportunities and services, but because of the “black box” nature of AI models, it is hard to hold companies accountable. Even where identification is accurate, when used within systems that perpetuate biases, algorithmic systems and AI fuel systemic biases and further discriminatory and harmful economic, policing, and immigration practices. Policies must address the exacerbation of discriminatory practices by AI and other technologies head-on. Additionally, there is growing concern about the role of AI in the United States workforce given the potential threat of automation. Based on current trends, AI and automation tend to replace routine, repetitive, and low- to mid-skill jobs, such as data entry, customer service, food service, retail, transportation, and warehouse work. Historically, Black and Brown workers are overrepresented in these roles. As a result, if these positions are automated, Black and Brown workers would be disproportionately harmed by an outsized number of layoffs. If AI continues to be integrated into the U.S. workforce, it is in the country’s economic interest for Black workers and other limited-skilled workers to be retrained and reskilled to adapt to technological change. AI data centers are increasingly and disproportionately being built in predominantly Black and Brown communities as well as low-income communities, often leading to heightened economic and environmental burdens such as increased electricity and water consumption. This contributes to rising utility costs and pollution in communities that already face environmental racism. While existing civil rights laws prohibit algorithmic bias, a stronger, comprehensive regulatory framework is necessary given the potential for AI systems to cause mass harm to Black communities. Some jurisdictions, such as California, Colorado, Illinois, and New York City, have passed legislation addressing algorithmic bias, and others, like California have adopted regulations to clarify how civil rights laws apply to AI systems or passed privacy laws that provide consumers the right to opt out of automated processing of their personal data. But federal guidance, regulations, legislation, and enforcement are needed to supplement those efforts. However, the Trump Administration and its congressional allies have threatened to preempt state and local laws

that provide basic civil rights protections as well as legislation specifically focused on AI. Federal action has also made it harder to identify and ameliorate bias in AI systems. Executive Order 14281, “Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy,” makes it a policy of the federal government to eliminate the use of disparate impact to the maximum degree possible. Executive Order 14173, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” treats bias mitigation techniques, fairness testing, and demographic auditing as potentially unlawful diversity, equity, and inclusion activities rather than as civil rights compliance and anti-discrimination measures. Changes to regulatory rules under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act further make it almost impossible to use disparate impact to challenge discriminatory underwriting, credit scoring, and pricing models.

2026 Priorities •

Advance policies that promote the public good over corporate profit by opposing the preemption state and local civil rights, consumer protection, and other laws that regulate AI.

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Promote robust regulation of AI and other emerging technologies to protect civil rights and address mis- and dis-information without impairing free speech.

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Mandate robust public reporting about government use of private vendors who employ AI while pushing for greater transparency in how AI systems make decisions and implement mechanisms for accountability when these systems cause harm.

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Mandate robust public reporting about government use of AI, including engaging private vendors that employ AI, particularly when used for decision making, and implement transparency measures and accountability mechanisms.

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Ensure entities using AI that impacts consumers have strong AI governance frameworks and oversight at the federal and state levels and employ compliance programs that incorporate robust fairness analyses that include disparate impact.

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Require regular audits of AI systems, particularly in high-stakes areas such as lending, housing, health care, and employment, to identify and mitigate racial biases, and ban certain high-risk uses of AI such as in law enforcement.

Resources • • • • • • • • •

Ethnonationalism by Algorithm, (The George Washington University Law School). AI Hiring Tools Can Yield Racial Bias and Systemic Rejection, (Stanford University Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence). The Rush to Build AI Data Centers Leaves Black Workers with New Risks, (Forbes). Racial Segregation and the Data-Driven Society: How our Failure to Reckon with Root Causes Perpetuates Separate and Unequal Realities, (Berkeley Technology Law Journal). Deepfakes in Elections and Campaigns, (National Conference of State Legislatures). Why Community Benefit Agreements Are Necessary for Data Centers, (The Brookings Institution). AI Governance: Overcoming Policy Barriers to Fairness and Privacy, (National Fair Housing Alliance). The “Black Box” Nature of AI, (PM 360) Big Tech is Powering the Future on Our Backs and Black Communities are Paying the Price, (Color of Change).

Technology and Telecommunications

Content Moderation & Black LGBTQ+ Youth While the original Playbook highlighted general concerns about content moderation for Black communities, this addendum section focuses on the impacts on Black LGBTQ+/ SGL youth. Federal lawmakers developing the next generation of youth online safety rules face a responsibility that extends beyond limiting harmful content: their frameworks must account for the lived realities of Black LGBTQ+/SGL youth, who often navigate the combined effects of racial bias and anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination. National survey data from the Trevor Project underscores the urgency. LGBTQ+/SGL youth of color report elevated suicide attempt rates compared with their white peers, with many experiencing racial discrimination alongside stigma related to sexual orientation or gender identity. Approximately one in four Black transgender and nonbinary youth reported a suicide attempt within the past year. These outcomes are not inherent to identity; they reflect the impact of rejection, discrimination, and exclusion across families, schools, faith communities, and broader social environments. For many young people, digital spaces provide access to information, community, and representation that may be unavailable in their offline environments. Online platforms can help youth understand their identities, encounter affirming examples of families and communities, access mental health resources, and build connections that support belonging, particularly when acceptance has not yet been available at home or in their neighborhoods. Acceptance itself is protective: research shows that family support is associated with substantially lower odds of suicidal ideation among LGBTQ+ youth. Expanding access to accurate, affirming information can strengthen understanding rather than isolate young people from needed resources. However, online safety approaches based on broad content categories, algorithmic suppression of “sensitive” material, or intrusive age-verification systems risk limiting access to precisely the resources many marginalized youth rely on most. This concern is especially significant given persistent gaps in youth mental health care access, including among LGBTQ+ young people seeking support. Legislation such as the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) raises additional concerns among civil rights organizations and Black LGBTQ+ advocacy groups because its proposed “duty of care” standard could grant regulators broad authority to determine what content may contribute to harms such as anxiety or depression. Without clear safeguards, such standards could unintentionally restrict access to information about LGBTQ+ identities, racial justice,

reproductive health, and other topics that are essential to young people’s safety and development. Congress should ensure that any online safety legislation protects youth from genuine harms while preserving access to age-appropriate information. Durable policy solutions require content-neutral protections, transparent rulemaking, meaningful accountability, and limits on enforcement discretion so that young people’s access to essential resources does not depend on shifting political priorities or the views of individual officials.

2026 Priorities •

•

Duty-of-care and design-feature requirements should draw on research broken out by race and ethnicity alongside sexual orientation and gender identity, since broad “harmful content” definitions may miss, or amplify, the layered risks Black LGBTQ+/SGL youth face. Statutory language should explicitly and durably guarantee young people’s ability to reach crisis services, mental health support, and culturally specific community resources, including those built for Black LGBTQ+/SGL youth and families, without exposing platforms to liability that would chill access. Since family and community acceptance measurably reduces risk, Congress should pair any safety legislation with investments in culturally competent family-support programs, faith-community engagement, and public education, rather than relying on restrictions as the sole lever.

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Age-verification and parental-monitoring requirements need evaluation for how they affect all minors, including the heightened risks of outing, surveillance, or household harm faced by Black LGBTQ+/SGL youth.

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Congress should formally incorporate the perspectives of young people, parents, educators, faith leaders, and civil rights organizations with specific expertise in Black LGBTQ+/SGL youth and family dynamics into the legislative process.

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Enforcement bodies should be subject to transparency and reporting requirements broken out by race and identity, so that any disproportionate impacts on marginalized youth populations, including Black LGBTQ+/ SGL youth, can be tracked and addressed.

Resources • • • • • • • • • • •

Black Facts Research, (National Black Justice Collective). Independent Research on Kids, Technology, and Online Safety, (Common Sense Media). Nonpartisan Legislative Analysis of Youth Online Safety Bills, (Center for Democracy & Technology). Children’s Online Safety Laws Are Failing LGBTQ+ Youth, (The Brookings Institution). Digital Policy Advocacy for the LGBTQ+ Community, (LGBT Tech). 2025 U.S National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People, (The Trevor Project). Project SPARK Interim Report, (The Trevor Project). Family Acceptance Project, (San Francisco State University). Kids Online Safety Act, (U.S. Congress). The Dangers of Age Verification Provisions, (LGBT Tech). Teen’s Social Media Habits and Experiences, (Pew Research Center).

New Policy Area

Immigration 2026 Playbook Addendum Issue Areas: • • • •

Reshaping the Racial Makeup of the U.S. Through Immigration Policy Destabilizing Black Families Crimmigration in Black Communities Hope as a Discipline: Four Pillars for Immigrant Justice

Immigration, as a matter of policy, social structures, and law, is a Black issue. Whether it is the fight to establish and protect birthright citizenship, the development of avenues to allow migration from majority-Black countries or challenging the detention of Haitian migrants at Guantánamo Bay in the early 1990s, Black people — through protest, litigation, and policy change, have always been at the helm of shaping the United States immigration system. As a people who were forcibly taken from one continent and brought to another, who survived the brutality of chattel slavery, built a nation, and — against all odds — have found joy, power, and dignity while in continued struggle and resistance against the very systems that subjugated them for centuries, it is that spirit of steadfastness and disciplined hope that continues to wrestle with the question of belonging in the American fabric. We are now confronted with the inflection points from the past that built up to a moment of reckoning. The 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) expanded mass incarceration and established the detention-todeportation pipeline. As a result, Black immigrants, like Black U.S. citizens who are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement and live in overpoliced neighborhoods are also disproportionately detained and deported, despite making up a far smaller share of the immigrant population. In the span of a few weeks in 2026, the country witnessed the police killing of Corey Ruiz in Wisconsin and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) killings of two people, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine. These killings in communities across the U.S. happened while more than 50 people, including Black immigrants, died in ICE custody. This year, the Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara, ruling 6–3 that Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship could not be reconciled with the 14th Amendment. Weeks earlier, the Court gutted a humanitarian protection program: Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. In Mullin v. Doe, the Court held that decisions by the Secretary of Homeland Security to terminate a country’s TPS designation are not subject to judicial review — clearing the way for the administration to end TPS for Haiti and Syria, with the TPS designations of Somalia, Ethiopia, and South Sudan similarly exposed to termination. It is a decision that could hurl hundreds of thousands of Black immigrants back to countries where they face imminent harm or death. These landmark decisions come against the backdrop of a sweeping travel ban that, as of January 2026, restricts entry from 39 countries and disproportionately targets Muslim-majority and Black-majority nations — including Haiti, The Gambia, and Senegal, among many others. There is also a near-total halt of asylum access at U.S. borders, alongside restrictions on refugee resettlement for everyone except white South African Afrikaners. Taken together, this is a clear attempt to close pathways for Black and Brown people to enter the U.S., while de-documenting and targeting Black immigrants who have been part of our communities for decades — a deliberate reshaping of the very makeup of this country.

Immigration

Reshaping the Racial Makeup of the U.S. Through Immigration Policy The civil rights movement’s momentum helped open the door to the diverse immigration patterns into the U.S. Just months after passing the Voting Rights Act, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, abolishing the race-based national-origins quota system that had barred most immigration from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, replacing it with one prioritizing family ties, skills, and refugees. Today, the Trump administration’s immigration policies have pushed an agenda combining mass de-documentation, detention, and deportations, with the stated goal being to shrink the foreign-born population of the U.S. The past year and a half has seen rapid and significant changes to the U.S. legal immigration system. Pathways for migration from Blackmajority countries in particular have been narrowed through a series of administrative actions, including expansive travel bans, the dismantling of the refugee resettlement program, the suspension of the Diversity Visa program, and the implementation of a new visa bond pilot program. While these policies are often framed as national security or immigration enforcement measures, they disproportionately apply to Black-majority countries or restrict immigration pathways that have historically been used by migrants from Africa, the Caribbean, and other parts of the African diaspora. The administration’s expanded travel ban affects 39 countries, 26 of which are in Africa, making African countries nearly two-thirds of those subject to the ban. When combined with the 75-country public charge ban, over 90 countries face some sort of travel restriction, with over half located in Africa and the Caribbean. Likewise, the refugee resettlement program, which has served as a critical form of humanitarian protection for individuals fleeing conflict and persecution in countries such as Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has selectively resumed admissions for white Afrikaners from South Africa, leaving thousands of previously approved refugees from Africa and elsewhere unable to travel to the U.S. The Diversity Visa program, which has long been one of the most significant immigration pathways for African migrants, has been suspended, eliminating a program through which African countries have consistently received

tens of thousands of immigrant visas each year. At the same time, the administration has implemented a visa bond pilot that requires temporary visitors to post up to a $20,000 bond prior to being issued a visa. Such bonds create a significant financial barrier to accessing visas to the U.S. Notably, 33 of the current 50 countries subject to visa bonds are African and Caribbean countries. Together, these actions represent a substantial contraction of lawful migration that disproportionately affects Black migrants. Although each policy operates through a different legal mechanism, their combined effect is to reduce opportunities for migration from Africa, the Caribbean, and the broader African diaspora.

2026 Priorities •

Pass the NO BAN Act to limit executive authority to impose sweeping nationalitybased entry restrictions and provide meaningful congressional and judicial oversight.

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Direct the administration to resume refugee processing and travel, prioritizing refugees who have completed security screening, received conditional approval, or been separated from family members.

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Establish a statutory refugee admissions floor and protect congressionally appropriated resettlement funding from executive suspension and diversion.

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Pass the Diversity Visa Protection and Modernization Act to preserve the integrity of the Diversity Visa program and strengthen congressional oversight.

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Pass the American Dream and Promise Act and/or the SECURE Act to provide a path to permanent status to Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders and Dreamers.

Resources • •

New Entry Bans, Same Faulty Reasoning, (Brennan Center for Justice). New Ban Bars Half of Legal Immigrants, Even Citizens’ Spouses & Kids, (CATO Institute).

Immigration

Destabilizing Black Families Black immigrants are an integral part of Black America, with more than 5.1 million Black immigrants living in the United States and comprising approximately 12% of the nation’s Black population. The overwhelming majority are lawfully present, including naturalized citizens, lawful permanent residents, and individuals with humanitarian protections like TPS. As the Trump Administration’s dedocumentation agenda expands and humanitarian protections such as TPS, asylum, parole, and refugee resettlement are rolled back, these policies increasingly destabilize Black families including U.S. citizen children, spouses, and other relatives. Many Black immigrant families are mixed-immigration-status households. Nationally, more than 4.9 million U.S. citizen children have at least one undocumented parent, illustrating how immigration enforcement frequently places American children at risk of losing a parent or caregiver through detention or deportation. The aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling in Mullin v. Doe is a clear example: as more than 300,000 Haitian and Syrian TPS holders brace themselves for losing status, many are weighing the difficult options of taking their U.S. citizen children away from the only home they’ve ever known or being separated from their children as they return to countries where they may face harm or even death. Beyond family separation itself, immigration enforcement also creates widespread economic and social instability. When parents lose work authorization or are detained, families often lose critical income needed to pay rent, purchase food, and meet basic household needs. Research also documents a significant “chilling effect,” with many mixed-status families avoiding health care, nutrition assistance, and other public benefits for which they or their U.S. citizen children are legally eligible because they fear immigration consequences. Between 2016 and 2019, Medicaid and CHIP participation among low-income U.S. citizen children living with a noncitizen household member declined by 18%, compared with an 8% decline among children in citizen-only households, illustrating how immigration enforcement can reduce access to essential supports even for American children.

2026 Priorities •

Advance the Protect American Values Act to restore confidence in access to essential benefits for eligible families by blocking implementation of the restrictive public charge rule.

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Advance legislation to protect family unity within the United States by establishing and enforcing protections that prevent the detention or removal of parents and primary caregivers of U.S.-citizen children.

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Advance the NO BAN Act to protect family reunification across borders by ensuring that nationality-based visa and travel restrictions do not prevent U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents from reuniting with immediate family members.

Resources •

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2026 Black Immigrants in the U.S. Fact Sheet, (FWD.us, Haitian Bridge Alliance, NAACP, UndocuBlack Network). Potential “Chilling Effects” of Public Charge and Other Immigration Policies on Medicaid and CHIP Enrollment, (KFF).

Immigration

Crimmigration in Black Communities The harms that mixed-status Black families experience are compounded by the rapid expansion of the detention system and longstanding racial inequities Black communities face in the criminal legal system. Black immigrants often experience immigration enforcement within neighborhoods already shaped by disproportionate policing, racial profiling, and systemic underinvestment. This intersection, often referred to as “crimmigration,” describes the growing convergence of the criminal legal and immigration enforcement systems. The 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) were inflection points in the development of the crimmigration system in the US. These laws expanded the number of deportable offenses, created mandatory minimums for sentencing, and created a regime of double punishments for immigrants, who serve their sentences and pay their dues through the criminal legal system, only to find ICE waiting for them upon their release. The immigration detention system is the other side of the U.S. mass-incarceration coin. Under the current presidential administration, ICE has been rapidly expanding its detention system with tent camps on military bases and in remote swamplands like Alligator Alcatraz in the Florida Everglades, and even an attempt at converting industrial warehouses into detention facilities. Last year the detained population reached a record high of over 71,000 people held in conditions marked by physical and sexual abuse, medical neglect, and rotten food. There have been more than 50 deaths in ICE custody since the beginning of the second Trump administration, the deadliest stretch in the system’s history. While immigration law has long allowed certain criminal convictions to carry immigration consequences, the Trump Administration’s recent policy changes and enforcement efforts have impacted Black immigrants, including some lawful permanent residents with decadeslong ties to the United States, for detention and removal based on past convictions, in some cases decades old – for which they have already completed their criminal sentences. The administration has also pushed the bounds of well-settled immigration law by subjecting long-standing members of our communities to mandatory and indefinite detention, with no opportunity for bond hearings. While multiple federal courts have rejected this mass

detention policy, the administration continues to target Black immigrants like Haitian TPS holders, Black DACA recipients, and permanent residents for detention. The Supreme Court is slated to hear Genalo v. Black, one of the most consequential detention cases, considering the limits on how long someone can be held under mandatory detention provisions before they’re entitled to a bond hearing, and whether the government bears the burden of justifying continued detention at that hearing.

2026 Priorities •

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Pass the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act to repeal mandatory detention and prohibit the detention of families and children in family detention. Reintroduce the New Way Forward Act to restore judicial discretion and due process for all individuals who come into contact with the criminal law and immigration systems and remove certain criminal convictions as grounds for deportation and/ or exclusion.

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Eliminate the three and ten year bars, which prohibit return to the U.S. and create barriers to obtaining status.

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End police and ICE collaboration programs such as 287(g).

Resources • • •

Key Findings about Black Immigrants in the U.S., (Pew Research Center). Deputized for Disaster How President Trump’s 287(g) Deportation Force is a Powder Keg for our Communities, (American Civil Liberties Union). Criminalizing Blackness An analysis of the impacts of the 1994 Crime Bill and 1996 Immigration Bill on Black people and Policy Recommendations to Address the Harms Caused, (UndocuBlack Network, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Movement for Black Lives, Law for Black Lives).

Immigration

Hope as a Discipline: Four Pillars As Mariame Kaba reminds us, “hope is a discipline” — a practice we choose, even in the face of a system and administration determined to exhaust us. Like the past and current Black liberation struggles, we must ground our vision for a more just U.S. immigration system in collective struggle and sustained hope.

2026 Priorities •

A real pathway to citizenship: Black people fought and bled for the right to full citizenship in this country, from the Reconstruction amendments to the civil rights movement, and that same fight for permanent, unassailable belonging must extend to immigrants, who are American in every way but on paper.

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Reforming immigration enforcement to be more effective and humane: Reports of deaths in immigration detention, documented use-of-force incidents involving ICE and other federal enforcement agents, and persistent oversight failures point to structural problems that go beyond individual incidents. Incremental reforms to ICE’s existing structure are unlikely to be sufficient to address these underlying issues—instead, what is needed is a complete restructuring of the immigration enforcement system to separate enforcement functions from a broader, redesigned approach to immigration management. A reformed system should prioritize due process, robust independent oversight, and enforcement practices proportionate and consistent with the rule of law — while keeping families together wherever possible, rather than treating separation as an incidental consequence of enforcement. This approach offers a path toward a system that is both more effective and more humane.

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Safe, orderly borders with expanded legal pathways: Establishing a border management system that doesn’t rely on cruelty or deterrence, paired with more, not fewer, ways for people to migrate lawfully, is a critical step in undoing the harms the Trump administration and others before it have done in obstructing access to legal pathways like asylum and gutting humanitarian protection programs like TPS.

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Accountability and oversight: The treatment of immigrants under this administration, and some before it, requires a moment of reckoning. Families have been torn apart. The administration has pushed to detain 100,000 people in tent camps and even industrial warehouses. Hundreds of thousands face mass expulsion after having their lawful status stripped away. People have died preventable deaths while detained. Real oversight and consequences for those within the system who have inflicted harm on immigrants, and on their extended communities, is a necessary step toward healing and building a safer future.

Conclusion This addendum builds on the evidence and recommendations presented in Forward Together: The Black Policy Playbook for an Equitable America by identifying new and emerging policy challenges and opportunities affecting Black communities. It draws on the expertise of leading civil rights and policy organizations that came together to assess these developments and determine where continued action is needed. The priorities outlined here offer policymakers actionable ways to respond to changes in voting rights, economic opportunity, workforce policy, education, healthcare, the criminal legal system, technology and telecommunications, and immigration. Policymakers can work with the contributing organizations to better understand these challenges, develop solutions, and advance more equitable outcomes for Black Americans. Our hope is that this work will help sustain momentum for the changes needed to guarantee that Black Americans live with dignity, security, and full participation in civic and economic life. The challenges facing Black communities are not new, but the policy environment continues to evolve. By bringing together research, policy expertise, and perspectives from organizations committed to strengthening Black communities, this effort reflects the collaboration necessary to protect progress, confront new barriers, and continue building a more equitable America. We encourage policymakers to meet this moment with the bold, effective action outlined here—forward, together.

About the Organizations Producing this Report For 50 years, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation has provided thought leadership on issues that are of pressing importance to Black communities, in support of its mission to advance the global Black population. An integral part of this mission is advanced through the work of its Center for Policy Analysis and Research, which has helped actualize the founding purpose of the Foundation to serve as a think tank to support the legislative efforts of the Congressional Black Caucus. By engaging in substantive, collaborative partnerships with stakeholder organizations, the Center for Policy Analysis and Research generates impactful research and policy recommendations that advance equity and equality for people of African descent across a range of issue areas, including public health, education, economic advancement, voting rights, criminal justice, technology, and more. Since its founding in 1970, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies has evolved into America’s Black think tank, serving as a hub of policy for government officials and public intellectuals focused on positive change for Black American communities. The Joint Center identifies opportunities to remove structural barriers for Black Americans through engaging in research and analysis on economic policy, job quality, tax policy technology policy, workforce development, and the state of congressional staff diversity. With an emphasis on high-quality data and analysis, and through ongoing partnerships with community members, advocates and civil rights organizations, industry leaders, academics, and government officials, the Joint Center provides relevant, accessible solutions that prioritize impact for Black communities and more.

Acknowlegements The CBCF and the Joint Center collaborated with several organizations with topical expertise to produce this addendum, including: American Civil Liberties Union, African Communities Together, Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause, Fair Vote, Fibroid Foundation, National Black Justice Collective, National Council of Negro Women, National Fair Housing Alliance, the Legal Defense Fund, UndocuBlack Network. These organizations, among others, are poised to provide expert insight and analysis on how these issues affect Black Americans. Their support demonstrates the value of this policy agenda and clearly communicates the pressing nature of addressing these inequities for Black communities.

Report Authors We are grateful to all the authors who helped in the creation of this policy agenda addendum, including: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Nikitra Bailey, National Fair Housing Alliance Louis Bedford, Legal Defense Fund Rahel Boghossian, ACLU Danielle A. (Davis) Canty, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Jonathan M. Cox, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Kim Conway, ACLU Haddy Gassama, ACLU Steven Hawkins, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Ashley Harrington, Legal Defense Fund LaTreshia Hamilton, Legal Defense Fund Jina John, ACLU Chelsea Jones, Brennan Center for Justice Virginia Kase Solomón, Common Cause Victoria Kirby York, National Black Justice Collective Diana Konaté, African Communities Together

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Hamida Labi, Legal Defense Fund Lisa Merdoc, National Fair Housing Alliance Preston Mitchum, Common Cause Nicole Ndumele, ACLU LaToya B. Parker, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Nina Patel, ACLU Lauren Pearlman, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Lisa Rice, National Fair Housing Alliance Krissy Roth, Legal Defense Fund Amalea Smirniotopoulos, Legal Defense Fund Lakeisha Steele, Fair Vote Ja’Lia Taylor, National Council of Negro Women Astou Thiane, UndocuBlack Network Sateria Venable, The Fibroid Foundation David Wheaton, Legal Defense Fund Brenda Wright, Legal Defense Fund Rayna Young, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation

Special Thanks Erika Brown, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Daniel Ikem, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Anthony Nicome, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Ashley Stone, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation