By Rebecca Kislak, Legal Key Law & Policy Consultant
April 29, 2025
As a team, we at Legal Key have been reflecting on the uncertainty of the last few months. How can we best support our partners in the face of so much unpredictability? How are our care teams faring? How are their patients and clients?
Legal Key Law & Policy Consultants have received many questions since January relating to changes in immigration laws. The stress that care partners and the people they support is intense and real. Our first three Unlocking Access® trainings (our monthly training series for partners) in 2025 focused solely on immigration.
Then in late April we conducted a training, First 100 Days, covering topics beyond immigration that the federal administration has proposed to change in their first 100 days. By our count, as of April 25 the President has signed 139 executive orders, 37 memoranda, and 39 proclamations. These various documents target basic needs such as access to housing, education, Social Security, health care, and more.
While it is easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of these pronouncements, it is important to remember that proposed changes to federal law or funding do not always mean the changes will go into effect. Some changes, such as those impacting federal funding, agencies, or staffing, have begun to be implemented. But some have not, because they have been paused by our courts or require Congress to act. And the federal government cannot generally change state or local laws.
And yes, in many cases, we have more questions than answers. We still don’t know what is happening with things such as student loans, or subsidized housing, or access to Social Security.
Above all, it is important to remember that across the country, and certainly in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, court cases are challenging many of the proposed changes to federal law, policy, and funding. Courts are making decisions daily, and many of them have blocked administration proposals. In fact, both before and after our April training session, new presidential and court actions meant information changed two times that day — even Legal Key has a hard time keeping up sometimes!
The common themes that emerged from our First 100 Days training were that the legal landscape continues to be very uncertain, and the pace of change is happening so quickly that it is hard to keep up. But Legal Key is committed to help our partners and collaborators stay informed in real time about updates to the law and to equip them with accurate and actionable information. And in that way, we will navigate these difficult times together.