California board approves over $2M to provide services to illegal immigrants

A California board voted unanimously to allocate millions of dollars for services aimed at protecting illegal immigrants and refugees in the community.

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors in Oakland decided at Tuesday’s regular meeting to set aside around $2.2 million for communities in their area in response to President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration, at the request of the board’s ad hoc Alameda County Together for All Committee.

“I’m committed, and I believe Supervisor [Elisa] Marquez is also committed, to making sure the board, the public, has more information and that this work is truly effective in reaching every single person in this community that is potentially at risk,” Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas, chairwoman of the committee, said at the meeting.

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Minutes from the meeting show that the board approved the use of $50,000 to the Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach to “provide legal services and advocacy to marginalized immigrant communities.” The money is being pulled from the District 5 Prior Year Savings fund and the Discretionary Services and Supplies funds.

The board also approved up to $700,000 to be used by Centro Legal de La Raza to establish a Rapid Response Hotline, Know Your Rights training sessions, pre-emptive legal services and community volunteer network response coordination.

The organization describes itself as a “legal services agency protecting and advancing the rights of low-income, immigrant, Black, and Latinx communities through bilingual legal representation, education, and advocacy.”

Trabajadores Unidos Workers United was also approved for up to $500,000 to be used on “resources and preparation to immigrant and refugee communities, including training, mutual aid, and neighborhood resources.”

“TUWU believes in upholding the power of working-class immigrants through forging class consciousness and growing the leadership of low-wage immigrant workers,” the organization says on its website. “TUWU seeks to abolish workplace exploitation through organizing, political education, and direct action that shifts power to the hands of the working class.”

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The California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice was also given up to $1 million for legal services.

According to its website, the CCIJ’s mission is to “utilize coordination, advocacy, and legal services to fight for the liberation of immigrants in detention in California.”

“For the community work, the proposal is that the county would fund half of one year’s budget and there’s private fundraising happening to fund the other half,” Fortunato Bas said, in part.

Supervisor David Haubert said the funding is “a community effort” and is being made possible through a “public/private partnership,” emphasizing the financial burden is not solely on the county.

Fortunato Bas said in a Facebook post on Wednesday that one-third of Alameda County residents are immigrants and “half of our children grow up in a household with at least one immigrant parent.”

“We are a diverse county, and our community needs protection. The policies of the federal administration are causing fear among our residents,” she wrote, in part. “The unanimous vote of the Board of Supervisors demonstrates our county’s commitment to our immigrant and refugee communities, who will have more access to critical information, services, and legal support.”

The money approved on Tuesday comes after the board authorized $1.3 million in February for the Alameda County Public Defender Office’s Immigration Unit, which provides deportation defense and legal services to illegal immigrants facing deportation, according to NBC Bay Area.