Arizona leaders warn of devastating impact of Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ on Latinx families

Arizona politicians and community leaders condemned Republican congressmembers for passing President Donald Trump’s 2025 Reconciliation Bill on Thursday, which will significantly cut funding for Medicaid and food assistance programs and increase spending related to immigration enforcement and border security.

The bill, which Trump named the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” includes $4.5 trillion in tax breaks that will disproportionately benefit the wealthiest people. Those tax breaks will be offset in part by cuts to Medicaid — specifically, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) in Arizona — and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, also known as food stamps, which will affect millions of Americans already living in poverty.

The bill also includes $350 billion in funding for Trump’s border agenda. The funds would pay for the U.S.-Mexico border wall and for 100,000 migrant detention facility beds, the Associated Press reported.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates the bill would add more than $4 trillion to the debt over the next decade.

After Congress passed the bill Thursday afternoon, state leaders condemned Republicans and asked Arizonans to hold onto hope.

“Congress just sold out hundreds of thousands of Arizonans who will lose their health care and the ability to put food on their family's table,” Governor Katie Hobbs said on Twitter. “I will continue to fight for working Arizonans, but the devastating impact of this bill cannot be overstated.”

Sen. Mark Kelly stated that Americans will be worse off due to the bill. 

“This is the worst of Washington,” Kelly wrote on Twitter. “Not just because of what it’ll do to health care and food assistance for working families. But because a bunch of Senators and Representatives knew it was a really bad idea and voted for it anyway. Why? Because they’re more afraid of Donald Trump than they are committed to doing the right thing.”

Sen. Ruben Gallego shared an MSNBC video on Twitter showing the moment the bill was passed 218-214, with Republican representatives cheering, clapping and chanting “USA!”

“There you go. Republicans betrayed working families and will kick millions of people off of their health care,” Gallego wrote. “All while Americans continue to struggle with rising prices.”

In a statement, Arizona House Democrats said they were “outraged but not surprised” that Republicans passed the bill and “chose Trump and their billionaire donors over their own communities,” State Rep. Oscar De Los Santos wrote on behalf of the group.

“The Big Ugly Bill will cripple and close our rural hospitals, healthcare costs will skyrocket for everyone, and it endangers our developmentally disabled communities that rely on AHCCCS. We will see struggling Arizona families go without food benefits and the direct attack on clean energy will hurt our job market. All to give billionaires more tax breaks and increase our national debt.

“This is devastating and wrong for Arizona and for America. Republicans at every level of government own this and should be ashamed.”

Long-term impacts on hundreds of thousands of Arizonans

Enrique Davis-Mazlum, Arizona State Director at Unidos US, told CALÓ News that the bill will impact more than 365,000 Arizonans on Medicaid or AHCCCS. Many of these individuals will be working-class Latinx people struggling to make ends meet. 

In Arizona, more than 784,000 people rely on food stamps, with over 340,000 of them being children, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service. The $300 billion in national cuts to the SNAP will affect about 30% of people who rely on food assistance. 

In a written statement, Vianey Olivarría, executive director of Chispa Arizona, said Congress chose to invest in detention centers, border walls and tax breaks for the rich instead of funding people’s futures. 

“This bill is a devastating attack on our communities. It strips away the very basics of what our families need to live — healthcare, food, clean air, and safety — all while padding the pockets of the wealthy and expanding the government’s deportation machine,” Olivarría said. “Medicaid and SNAP are lifelines for millions of Latinx, immigrant, and working-class families across Arizona and the country. Cutting these programs is not just cruel — it’s violent.”

The bill will cause families to go hungry, children to lose healthcare, and the elderly to suffer, she wrote. 

“This isn’t just bad policy — it’s corrupt and it’s deadly. It tells our communities that we are disposable. That we don’t deserve clean air, or food, or healthcare — just punishment and poverty,” Olivarría said. “We reject that vision. We demand a future rooted in care, not cages. In clean, renewable energy and food security — not deportations and billionaires. We will not stop fighting until our communities are not only protected, but prioritized.”

These cuts will have long-term impacts, Davis-Mazlum said. People without health insurance are more likely to forgo preventive care because they can’t afford it, meaning they will likely wait until a health condition is urgent and then go to an emergency room for care, he said. Rural clinics that rely on Medicaid funds are expected to close. 

“Parents are struggling right now,” Davis-Mazlum said. “Some of them have two or three jobs just to make sure that they're able to pay for food and put a roof over their head. And with this, it's just going to make it much harder.”

Bethany Neumann, director of development and communications at Youth On Their Own, said a lot of the youth the organization serves rely on food stamps and Medicaid. 

Youth On Their Own is a Tucson-based organization that supports children in middle and high school who are experiencing homelessness so they can graduate from high school. The organization also supports high school graduates as they continue to find stability. Youth on Their Own provides youth with stipends to help them achieve financial stability while continuing their education. 

“SNAP is incredibly helpful for many of the young people that we serve,” Neumann told CALÓ News. “They themselves may be on it, if they're 18. The people that they're staying with may be on it. So eliminating funding for that could increase food insecurity.”

Neumann also pointed to a much smaller item on the federal bill, dedicated funding for the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. The bill that was passed on Thursday does not include any dedicated funding for McKinney-Vento. In 2024, Congress appropriated $129 million for the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program, one of several parts of the McKinney-Vento Act. 

The funding provides dedicated staff members in some schools who help identify unhoused youth and connect them to community resources, such as Youth On Their Own. It also provides transportation to and from school, allowing children to stay in the same school regardless of housing instability.  

Arizona received $2.38 million through the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program, which helped identify more than 19,000 youth across the state. The $129 million for the program was less than half a percent of the Department of Education’s total budget. 

“It's a drop in the bucket,” Neumann said. “But it's vital funding for many, many school districts.”

Davis-Mazlum said Unidos US will continue to support its affiliate organizations and work to educate Arizonans on how this bill will affect them. He is also reminding himself and others that nothing is eternal. 

People should take their anger, their depression and sadness and transform them into action, he said. 

“We need to participate, activate, learn, get educated on things,” Davis-Mazlum said, adding that “people need to hold elected officials accountable for their decisions.”