Ideas

This post explains how fear and immigration concerns can cause immigrants to withdraw from public life and why civic institutions are essential to keeping people informed, connected, and able to participate. It shows how schools, libraries, faith communities, cultural organizations, nonprofits, and other civic institutions can build trust, protect access, strengthen immigrant leadership, and create meaningful avenues for participation. It also identifies practical questions civic organizations can use to assess their readiness and explains how funders can support the long-term capacity required for immigrant civic participation.

Communities across the United States are becoming increasingly diverse. With that diversity comes an enduring challenge: How do people maintain the cultures that give them identity and belonging, strengthen the community in which they are members, participate fully in a larger society, and develop a common civic culture that people from different backgrounds and identities can recognize and help shape?

This is not a new question. The U.S. has wrestled with it throughout its history, moving unevenly among assimilation, multiculturalism, and integration. We have used metaphors ranging from the melting pot to the kaleidoscope to describe what we think a diverse society should become. These metaphors obscure an important question: Through what institutions do people actually learn how to live together, no matter what you call it?

For immigrants, the answer often begins with civic institutions. These include the formal and informal organizations, networks, and shared spaces through which people build relationships, pursue common purposes, participate in community life, and influence public decisions. They include schools, libraries, faith communities, cultural organizations, neighborhood associations, mutual-aid groups, sports and leisure clubs, advocacy organizations, hometown associations, and immigrant-serving nonprofits (Beck & Shklyan, 2021; Tomasko et al., 2023).

Civic institutions have always played an important role in connecting immigrants’ private lives and cultural communities to the public sphere. Fennema and Tillie (1999), for example, described civic associations as horizontal networks that connect ordinary residents with one another and provide a counterbalance to the vertical networks of people who hold formal decisionmaking power. Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995) similarly argued that organizations provide places where people can acquire and practice the skills required for civic participation.

Today, these institutions are more important than ever.

Why Fear Is Driving Civic Withdrawal

Effective, fair, and inclusive immigration policies shape whether immigrants and their families feel safe participating in everyday community life, not just whether they’re allowed to enter, work, and stay in a country. The current political environment is marked by intensified immigration enforcement, uncertainty about legal protections, heightened anti-immigrant rhetoric, and concerns about whether places once viewed as relatively safe, such as schools, health care facilities, courts, and houses of worship remain so.

A 2025 survey conducted by the Urban Institute found that almost one in five immigrant families had avoided activities important to their well-being because of immigration concerns. Nine percent avoided religious services or community events, eight percent avoided health care settings, and others refrained from going to work or driving. Members of mixed-status families reported particularly high levels of concern about sending children to school, seeking medical care, going to work, and talking with the police (Gonzalez et al., 2026).

This points to a withdrawal from public life.

When people stop attending school events, religious services, neighborhood meetings, cultural gatherings, or community programs, they lose access to information and assistance as well as to relationships. They become less visible to institutions and more isolated from neighbors. Institutions, in turn, lose the knowledge, leadership, and participation of their communities.

Earlier research showed that time, money, education, communication skills, and a psychological orientation toward participation affect an individual’s capacity to take part in civic life (Verba et al., 1995). For immigrants, however, willingness to participate is also shaped by trust, legal status, discrimination, experiences with government, and the broader environment in which participation occurs.

Recent studies reinforce this point. Lai (2021) found that legal status stratifies participation in some civic settings, including community and ethnic organizations and parent-teacher associations, even when it doesn’t have the same effect in religious institutions. Beck and Shklyan (2021) found that the local political environment may also affect whether undocumented immigrants participate in voluntary associations. Their findings suggest that participation may decline in places where anti-immigrant political sentiment is especially salient.

Fear and distrust can therefore weaken civic life. This nation and its communities cannot develop a common culture of participation when some of its members believe that being seen carries unacceptable risk. This is why strong and healthy civic institutions are so critical.

How Civic Institutions Connect Immigrants to Public Life

Civic institutions occupy the space between individuals and large public systems. They translate information, explain how systems work, connect people to one another and with resources, create opportunities for leadership, and carry community concerns to decisionmakers.

For immigrants unfamiliar with local systems or who have learned to distrust government through experiences in their countries of origin or in the U.S., a culturally rooted organization may provide the first credible connection to public life. Information from a trusted faith leader, community organizer, librarian, teacher, advocate, or mutual-aid network may carry more weight than a civic education workshop, a government policy, or any other information source.

There is a lot of evidence about the role of civic institutions in helping immigrants feel a part of their new environment and country. Fennema and Tillie (1999) found a relationship between the density of ethnic organizational networks and political participation and trust in local democratic institutions. Their work suggested that participation in ethnic organizations can socialize members into public affairs, collaborative problem solving, and collective action. Karpathakis (1994) found that ethnic organizations created bridges to the larger society through their ordinary operations. When members rented public space, obtained permits, or dealt with local institutions, they gained experience navigating their new environment. Participation also contributed to a sense of civic efficacy and belonging. Beck and Shklyan (2021) describe community-based organizations as crucial institutions that help immigrants bridge cultural gaps, understand public systems, obtain linguistically appropriate information, and find opportunities to participate. All the research also broadens civic integration beyond voting, petitions, or protest by recognizing participation in voluntary associations as a potential step toward wider civic involvement.

Okamoto and colleagues (2020), drawing on surveys and interviews with first-generation Mexican and Indian immigrants in Atlanta and Philadelphia, examined how feeling welcomed relates to immigrants’ trust in and interest in relationships with U.S.-born residents, as well as their civic participation. Their work reminds us that welcoming isn’t simply a sentiment. It’s part of the context that shapes whether people develop trust and participate.

Why Cultural Identity and Civic Participation Can Strengthen Each Other

Culturally rooted institutions have another important function in that they allow people to participate without relinquishing their identities. The civic activities taking place within immigrant communities aren’t always recognized as civic participation. Mutual aid, care for extended family and neighbors, language preservation, religious service, support for newcomers, and fundraising within a cultural community may be classified as private assistance or cultural maintenance rather than contributions to civic life.

Stanfield (1993) raised a similar concern in his examination of African American civic traditions. He argued that conventional definitions of civic activity often failed to recognize informal caregiving, assistance to extended family and neighbors, and participation through culturally important institutions. His larger point remains applicable today. Civic participation cannot be understood fully when the practices of one cultural group are treated as the universal standard.

Immigrant organizations can simultaneously preserve culture and promote civic participation in a larger society. Frödin, Fredholm, and Sandberg’s (2021) study of state-supported ethnic associations in Sweden found that these organizations helped members navigate public systems and could support political incorporation while maintaining cultural and transnational connections. Marzana and colleagues (2022) similarly examined how participation in migrant organizations can contribute to immigrants’ knowledge of the receiving society, identity, and relationships across groups.

What Makes Civic Institutions Trustworthy and Inclusive

While civic institutions have bridging potential, we shouldn’t romanticize them. The existence of an organization doesn’t guarantee meaningful interaction across groups and in the larger society. Dederichs and Wiertz (2025) found that people tended to join organizations with more members from their own ethnic groups and, even within diverse organizations, interacted disproportionately with co-ethnic members. The authors concluded that intentional effort is necessary if civic organizations are to fulfill their bridging potential.

Civic institutions undoubtedly create opportunities for interaction, but opportunity alone is insufficient. Organizations need the capacity — mindsets, knowledge, skills, relationships, and funds — to structure participation so that people can get to know one another across perceived and real differences and work on common concerns without retreating into separate groups.

Simply calling an institution safe or welcoming also doesn’t make that the case. Trust is based on what an organization does, not what it calls itself. Immigrants notice whether staff speak their languages, whether leaders understand their concerns, whether personal information is protected, and whether people from their communities have decisionmaking authority. They notice whether an organization remains present during a crisis or disappears when a grant ends. They also notice whether they are treated as civic actors with knowledge and agency or merely as clients who need services.

Research on nonprofit responsiveness reinforces the importance of institutional design. Long, Luo, and Terzieva (2026) found that interpersonal contact and representative governance were closely associated with how responsive nonprofits were to migrant populations. Their findings challenge the assumption that nonprofits are inclusive merely because they have benevolent missions.

The question for civic institutions, therefore, is not simply about participation numbers. It’s: What must we change so that participation is meaningful, safe, and consequential for immigrant communities?

Five Capabilities Civic Institutions Need Now

The current environment requires civic institutions to move beyond conventional outreach. At a minimum, they need five capabilities.

• Become Trustworthy Institutions. Trust is something that must be continuously built, repaired, strengthened, and sustained. It isn’t binary. Institutions must earn trust by communicating honestly, protecting confidentiality, following through on commitments, and acknowledging what they can and cannot guarantee. They should review what personal information they collect, why they collect it, who can access it, and how they would respond to an outside request for that information.
• Maintain Reliable Channels for Information. Rapid policy changes create confusion, and confusion creates opportunities for rumors, misinformation, misunderstandings, and intolerance. Civic institutions need established relationships with organizations that work with different communities, public agencies, and other institutions that represent systems of the larger society.
• Preserve Avenues for Participation. If people are reluctant to attend public meetings or large events, institutions need other ways for them to remain involved. These may include smaller gatherings, participation through trusted partner organizations, remote options, anonymous feedback, multilingual communication, and meetings held in familiar community settings.
• Connect Organizations Before a Crisis. No single civic institution can meet every need. Faith communities, schools, libraries, legal organizations, cultural groups, mutual-aid networks, hometown associations, and public agencies hold different forms of knowledge and reach different parts of a community. Relationships among them make it possible to exchange accurate information, coordinate responses, identify emerging concerns, and carry immigrant perspectives into decisionmaking spaces. Community organizers are essential to this work. As Minkoff (1995) demonstrated in her study of women’s and racial-ethnic organizations, organizers help frame shared concerns, broker relationships, mobilize resources, and turn dispersed experiences into collective action.
• Create Meaningful Roles for Immigrant Leadership. Immigrants shouldn’t be treated solely as recipients of protection or assistance. They are organizers, parents, workers, business owners, volunteers, professionals, cultural leaders, and advocates. They’re at different stages of their lives when they enter their new country. Civic institutions need to understand this, bridge who they were before and who they are now as leaders, and create opportunities for immigrants to continue growing as leaders and contributors.

Five Questions for Assessing Trust, Access, Protection, Connections, and Power

Civic institutions can bring together staff, board members, community partners, and immigrant leaders to ask these five questions to identify strengths, gaps, opportunities, and risks. Then, the answers can be used to develop a plan for cultivating and enhancing immigrant civic participation.

1. Trust: Which immigrant communities trust us, which do not, and what historical and contemporary experiences have shaped that trust? What can we do to repair, strengthen, and sustain the trust built?
2. Access: Can people obtain our information and participate regardless of language, transportation, work schedules, disability, technology, income, or immigration status? What do we need to do to remove these barriers?
3. Protection: What personal information do we collect, why do we collect it, who can access it, and what would happen if it were requested by an outside entity? What legal protections are there for our organization and the people we support?
4. Connections: What connections and relationships do we have with other public, nonprofit, and private organizations that employ, engage, or serve the same immigrant communities as us? Can we mobilize these when needed to improve immigrants’ access to opportunities and resources and to organize support?
5. Power: Are immigrants involved in defining priorities and making consequential decisions, or do we seek their input only after decisions have largely been made? What do we need to change in our practices and also build the power of immigrant communities?

Why Funders Have a Critical Role

These capabilities cannot be built through short-term outreach and program grants alone.

Trust, leadership, cultural knowledge, organizational relationships, and community credibility take time to develop. Institutions also need stable staff, financial security, technology, legal guidance, human resources support, administrative systems, policy advocacy knowledge, and other critical capabilities to respond to their communities’ needs and adapt as needed.

Funders should provide civic institutions that strive to increase immigrant civic participation with multiyear, flexible support. They should also fund rapid-response needs, language access, staff well-being, coalition infrastructure, immigrant leadership, and organization-directed technical assistance.

This isn’t only an investment in nonprofit effectiveness. It’s an investment in whether immigrants remain connected to community life.

Funders should also resist withdrawing support when immigrant organizations become more visible, vocal, or engaged in advocacy. In a difficult political environment, an organization’s willingness to represent its community may increase its exposure to controversy at the same time that it increases its civic value.

What Shifts in Immigrant Civic Participation Could Mean for Our Communities and Nation

The current political climate creates a serious risk. Immigrant families and communities may retreat from the institutions that connect them with schools, services, neighbors, and public decisionmaking. If that retreat becomes prolonged, communities will lose relationships and civic capacity that cannot be restored quickly, which has a detrimental impact on all communities and our nation as a whole.

We know that civic institutions cannot resolve the nation’s conflicts over immigration. They can, however, influence how those conflicts are experienced locally. They can reinforce fear and exclusion, or they can help people remain informed, connected, and able to act. Their role is more than welcoming immigrants into institutions that others have already defined. It’s also to work with immigrants to build institutions and a common civic life in which they have a meaningful place.

References:

Beck, K., & Shklyan, K. (2021). Civic engagement, legal status, and the context of reception: Participation in voluntary associations among undocumented immigrants in California. Socius, 7.

Dederichs, K., & Wiertz, D. (2025). Brittle bridges: Ethnic segregation across and within civic organizations. European Sociological Review, 41(4), 538–552.

Fennema, M., & Tillie, J. (1999). Political participation and political trust in Amsterdam: Civic communities and ethnic networks. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 25(4), 703–726.

Frödin, O., Fredholm, A., & Sandberg, J. (2021). Integration, cultural preservation and transnationalism through state-supported immigrant organizations: A study of Sweden’s national ethnic associations. Comparative Migration Studies, 9, Article 35.

Gonzalez, D., Haley, J. M., Bernstein, H., Kenney, G. M., & Karpman, M. (2026). Immigrant families disengaged from public life and essential services because of immigration concerns in 2025. Urban Institute.

Karpathakis, A. (1994). Acculturation as a result of actual and perceived opportunities for structural integration: The case of Greek immigrants in New York City. Sociological Abstracts, 1–17.

Lai, T. (2021). Legal exclusion, civic exclusion: How legal status stratifies Latino immigrants’ civic engagement. International Migration Review, 55(1).

Long, Y., Luo, W., & Terzieva, B. (2026). Bridging divides or widening gaps? Nonprofit organizations’ efforts for migrant inclusion in two global cities. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 55(4), 1049–1074.

Marzana, D., Martinez Damia, S., Marta, E., Pozzi, M., & Martínez, M. L. (2022). Engagement in migrant organizations for immigrant integration: A mixed-method study with Peruvians in Chile. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 23, 2125–2146.

Minkoff, D. C. (1995). Organizing for equality: The evolution of women’s and racial-ethnic organizations in America, 1955–1985. Rutgers University Press.

Okamoto, D. G., Tropp, L. R., Marrow, H. B., & Jones-Correa, M. (2020). Welcoming, trust, and civic engagement: Immigrant integration in metropolitan America. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 690(1), 61–81.

Stanfield, J. H., II. (1993). African American traditions of civic responsibility. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 22(2), 137–153.

Tomasko, L., Abramson, A., Mitchell, F., Kinneberg, K., Soskis, B., & Martin, H. (2023). The social sector infrastructure: Defining and understanding the concept. Urban Institute and George Mason University.

Verba, S., Schlozman, K. L., & Brady, H. E. (1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in American politics. Harvard University Press.

About the Author

• How does fear related to immigration enforcement affect immigrant participation in public and community life?
• What role do civic institutions play in connecting immigrants to public life?
• How can culturally rooted organizations support both cultural identity and civic participation?
• What makes a civic institution trustworthy to immigrant communities?
• What can civic organizations do when immigrants are reluctant to participate in public meetings or large events?
• How can civic institutions create meaningful roles for immigrant leadership?
• What questions can organizations ask to assess trust, access, protection, connections, and power?
• How can funders strengthen the civic infrastructure that supports immigrant participation?