Congress is setting the stage to decimate Medicaid.

The House of Representatives put forward a budget resolution that will lead to more than $880 billion in cuts from Medicaid. If approved, these cuts will eviscerate a critical source of health care and stability for 10s of millions of people. Most devastatingly, radical cuts to Medicaid will be catastrophic for people with disabilities for whom Medicaid is a lifeline.

Medicaid is an essential program that provides a wide range of critical health care services and support to millions of people across the country. The impacts of these draconian cuts would be staggering.

More than 10 million people with disabilities are enrolled in Medicaid, making it the largest provider of health care to people with disabilities, including people with mental health conditions. Beyond health care, Medicaid is the primary payer of home and community-based services (HCBS) for nearly 8 million seniors and people with disabilities, including those with complex care needs who depend on these services and supports to get out of bed, go to work, and live in their communities rather than being warehoused in costly and isolated institutions. Any cuts to HCBS will also harm family members who have to reduce hours at work or leave their jobs altogether to care for loved ones.

America’s seniors also rely on Medicaid for nursing home care; two-thirds of people living in nursing facilities are enrolled in Medicaid. Cuts to Medicaid will jeopardize access to nursing facilities and reduce the quality-of-care individuals receive. Many older adults with long-term care needs will be left with limited care options and, in some cases, no options at all if states are unable to fill the funding gap and must close nursing facilities.

Medicaid is the single largest funder of mental health and substance-use disorder care in the country. It provides care to nearly 14 million adults who have a mental health condition or substance use disorder. Medicaid expansion resulted in a significant increase in coverage and care for opioid use disorder (OUD.) Adults with OUD are twice as likely to receive OUD treatment if they have Medicaid than if they are uninsured or on private insurance.

School-age children would also be affected by Medicaid cuts. Medicaid supports more than $7.5 billion in school-based services, including certain services provided to children under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Funding helps pay for speech-language pathologists, audiologists, occupational therapists, school psychologists, school social workers, school nurses, and others who provide comprehensive health services. Medicaid also helps pay for specialized equipment that allows students with disabilities to learn and play alongside their peers. Seven out of 10 school-aged children who receive mental health services access these services at school, supported in large part by Medicaid.

Medicaid is the difference between life and death for millions. It enables people, especially those with disabilities, to participate in the economic, social, and civic life of the nation. It advances equal opportunity, dignity, and personal liberty for all.

Eviscerating Medicaid would not just impact those who rely on it for their quality of life, but it would also devastate the approximately 5 million direct care workers — home health aides, nursing assistants, personal care aides — who provide care and support to seniors and people with disabilities. These workers, predominantly low-wage women of color, help with all aspects of daily life, such as bathing, dressing, eating, managing medications, and attending appointments. Medicaid cuts will destabilize the direct-care workforce and jeopardize access to care.

As the House rams through its radical and thoughtless budget resolution that will gut Medicaid, the ACLU wants you to tell your Congress members how these devastating cuts will impact your community and those you know and love. Call your representatives today — and every single day — to tell them to protect Medicaid at all costs.

I live everyday in fear. My husband, Miguel, is undocumented and, despite what many believe, being married to a U.S. citizen does not protect him from Donald Trump’s unlawful efforts to deport millions of people.

Miguel is my best friend. He is wonderful, kind, and humble. We have a beautiful life that includes a successful business, a home, two children and five grandchildren. It is truly the American dream that so many people in this country strive to build for themselves. Today, it terrifies me to know that everything we’ve worked so hard could be taken from us by cruel immigration policies that argue Miguel isn’t “good enough” to even attempt to become a U.S. citizen.

Miguel has lived in this country for virtually his entire adult life. Even though Miguel has worked hard every day since he came to the states, because of how he entered the country, we’re struggling to find a path to citizenship for him. Miguel has paid taxes like any American despite never knowing if he might become a citizen and reap the benefits, like social security, of his hard work. I could live with that injustice. It was enough for us that he had authorization to work legally and was protected from immediate deportation.

Then Trump was re-elected.

In 2016, the first Trump administration reopened a lot of immigration cases like Miguel’s, trying to find a reason to deport people. We were fortunate to escape notice then, but I’m afraid we won’t be so fortunate now. The new Trump administration is far more cruel and far more determined to deport those it doesn’t view as “worthy” to be American citizens. I am terrified that Miguel will be next on Trump’s deportation list. I have cameras everywhere in my home. I’m scared to sleep, worried that ICE will knock on my door and take my husband. I’m at the point of having a breakdown over not knowing if he’s going to come home after work.

I have hired so many attorneys to find a path to permanent residency and citizenship for Miguel. Every attorney says that they can’t help us. I feel like every door has been closed to us. I can only hold out hope that a humanitarian visa, which acknowledges the hardships Miguel fled when he came to the states, might be available in spite of the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict almost every legal path to citizenship.

While we wait for updates about Miguel’s status, I am determined that I won’t go down without a fight. I am organizing in my community, I am lobbying my lawmakers and I am using my story to advocate for immigration reform. This country can’t keep relying on immigration policies that are more than 30 years out of date and vulnerable to the powerful and discriminatory anti-immigrant agenda that pervades politics today.

But in my fight there is also heartbreak. Miguel has become resigned, believing that there is no hope for him. The despair weighs heavily on our marriage. I don’t want to be separated from him. To stay together if he is deported, we started building a house in Mexico, a place Trump calls a “terrorist country” run by the cartel. It devastates me to think I might have to leave America, my children, my business, my community, and my hope behind just so that I can be with my partner, a man I’ve loved for more than two decades. Miguel is a husband, a father, a hard worker and, most importantly, a human being. He deserves the chance to keep supporting our country and for his chosen country to support him. We’ve worked so hard just to end up terrified that the Trump administration will snatch our American dream from us.