Jossie Flor Sapunar, national communications director for CASA, said she lost her appetite listening on Monday to Trump’s second Inaugural Address.

“President Trump is leading with a criminal-first message. He is attacking Black, brown and immigrant communities,” she said.

People representing marginalized groups in Maryland, including immigrants, non-white people and members of the LGBTQIA+ population, expressed displeasure with Donald Trump’s speech and subsequent issuing of executive orders they say could have harmful effects on their communities.

CASA, a national organization serving working-class Black, Latino, African descendant, Indigenous, and immigrant communities, called Trump’s promised executive orders to end birthright citizenship, restrict asylum-seekers, and boost funding border security funding part of a “dangerous mass deportation agenda” and an attack on Black and brown immigrant families.

“The Trump administration is once again leading the United States in abandoning its legal and moral obligation to be a refuge for those fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries and effectively dismantling our asylum system,” said Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA, which has one of its four state offices in Maryland. “Thousands of CASA members have come to this country to avail themselves of those protections, leaving their home countries with heavy hearts and a hope that they will be welcomed here.”

Sapunar said she was particularly concerned with Trump’s vow to end birthright citizenship.

“That’s one of the most clear constitutional violations. We’re waiting to see the language of the executive order. And we are ready to sue,” she said. “The 14th Amendment is abundantly clear. No president — including Trump — cannot undo the constitution with a presidential order.”

CASA is prepared to fight and has already launched efforts to help prepare vulnerable members of these communities, Sapunar said.

The organization launched a hotline last week to report raids by the federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The hotline was in direct response to the Trump administration, she said.

Following the November election, the organization held a training called “Know Your Rights” to help prepare people for possible encounters with federal immigration enforcement agents. More than 3,000 people, including those from Maryland, participated in the training, officials said.

“This is the moment we need allies. It can’t be a fight where we walk alone. That is the only way that we undo the harmful policies,” Sapunar said.

Maryland is home to some 225,000 undocumented people, according to the Migration Policy Institute, accounting for 5% of the state’s population. A tenth of Maryland households have at least one undocumented member.

The head of Global Refuge, the nonprofit organization formerly known as Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), which is based in Baltimore, expressed a “deep sense of alarm and urgency” and disappointment about Trump’s decision to suspend the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, which she said will disrupt the resettlement of tens of thousands of refugees seeking safety in the United States.

“The refugee program is not just a humanitarian lifeline through which the U.S. has shown global leadership. It represents the gold standard of legal immigration pathways in terms of security screening, community coordination, and mutual economic benefit,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge.

“Persecuted people who have patiently waited for their chance at protection are poised to languish in legal limbo,” she said. “Family reunifications are likely to be delayed for the foreseeable future, if not derailed entirely. Employers will lose access to a key talent pool they desperately need amid nationwide labor shortages. And communities that have come to rely on newcomers for revitalizing their economies and tax bases face impactful economic loss.”

In the executive order titled “Initial Recessions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” Trump also criticized the injection of racial and ethnic diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs “into our institutions [which] has corrupted them by replacing hard work, merit, and equality with a divisive and dangerous preferential hierarchy.”

The order also would revoke previous orders under the Biden administration that advanced education equity, excellence and economic opportunities for Native Americans and Black Americans. The order also repeals a provision allowing transgender troops to serve in the military.

Trump’s Inauguration Day also drew the ire of leaders in the local LGBTQIA+ community who objected to his recognition of only two genders: male and female.

Trump later signed an executive action: "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government."

“My Administration will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male,” the order states.

The order could eliminate one’s ability to choose “X” as their gender on passports; using terms like nonbinary and other could also be a thing of the past if Trump’s order takes effect.

Donovan Boson, a development administrator for Pride Center of Maryland, called Trump’s executive order “absolutely egregious.”

”As we continue to educate people on gender expression and how people, places, and things are named and identified, I hope the president and others who may share his views on such subjects take a moment to listen and learn from the experts,” Boson said.

Myoshi Smith, a pansexual relationship-enhancement specialist based in Baltimore’s Pigtown community, said she is already emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually exhausted on the first day of Trump’s administration.

“He is doing everything he promised to do and then some, so I’m not surprised,” Smith said. She added she believes Trump and his policy changes are going to cause “unfathomable” pain throughout this country over the next four years for these vulnerable communities.