Earlier this year, the Trump administration tried to cut off hundreds of millions in funding for groups providing free lawyers for illegal aliens facing deportation. Cutting the funding resulted in an extended legal battle with the nonprofits providing the lawfare at taxpayer expense.
But even as that battle was underway, states continued pouring millions into providing legal aid to not just illegal aliens, but to illegal alien criminals. That was exposed when California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom, looking to bolster his reputation ahead of a potential presidential campaign, added a signing statement to funding for the Equal Access Fund barring access to illegal alien criminals who had been, in his words, “convicted of serious or violent” crimes.
The restriction on aiding not just criminals, but the worst of the worst, shouldn’t have been controversial, but the state’s lawfare nonprofits quickly protested using the familiar arguments that refusing to fund aid for murderers, rapists and muggers would create a “chilling effect” on illegal alien communities and that it was too much of a “burden” to ask of legal aid orgs to figure out whether their clients had been convicted of horrifying crimes.
Democrats, who had plowed in an added $20 million to legal funds for illegal aliens, protested.
Even before Trump took office, $8 million in EAF money had been spent aiding illegal aliens and based on the outrage over the ban on aid for those convicted of serious and violent crimes, it seems likely that a significant portion of those resources were used to protect illegal alien criminals who had committed violent crimes and were being protected so they could prey on Californians. Legal aid groups defending illegals clamored that it was vital to keep violent criminals “united with their families” in California. And that is what has been happening.
Hamid Yazdan Panah, the Iranian director of Immigrant Defense Advocates, claimed that “California reaps the benefits of keeping households together and having a strong immigrant workforce that has work permits.”
Especially when that workforce consists of violent criminals.
(It is important to note that even Newsom’s restriction on providing free legal aid to violent illegal alien criminals resisting deportation only applies to those already previously convicted of certain crimes and not to the current illegal alien offenders who were detained after committing a crime.)
Beyond the state level, California cities and counties have spent millions on illegal alien lawfare including the LA Justice Fund in Los Angeles, which claims to have allocated around $10 million over its lifespan, multimillion funds at the municipal level in LA, $1.3 million in Alameda County, $1.75 million in San Mateo County and a much more sizable basket of cash in San Francisco, boosted by funding from private foundations for city legal services.
California is not alone in putting millions of dollars at the disposal of nonprofits protecting illegal alien criminals. And, surprisingly, it’s not even the biggest funder of such destructive efforts.
New York’s legislature allocated $64 million for illegal alien legal services. Advocates for illegal aliens once again protested, this time that it wasn’t enough, and demanded $165 million.
Murad Awawdeh, the ‘Palestinian’ Muslim head of the New York Immigrant Coalition, complained that “it is disappointing that the state invested only $64.2 million for immigrant legal services, falling short of the $165 million needed to meet the moment. As Donald Trump and his administration escalate their attacks on immigrant communities, New York must lead the nation in its support for immigrants–the stability of our communities and New York’s economy depends on it.” Spending $165 million to protect illegal alien criminals would drain New York’s economy.
When New York City first allocated $16.4 million in 2017 to protect illegal aliens from deportation, there was debate about which felons would be excluded from free legal aid. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio had falsely claimed that those convicted of crimes such as child endangerment and forcible touching would not be protected, but the former City Council president insisted that these criminals were being protected and would continue to be.
Since then the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP) benefited from a $109 million budget proposal for 2026, up from $25 million last year. The head of New York City’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, an office largely dedicated to illegal aliens, claimed that about 10% of illegal aliens would be affected by the contested provision barring those convicted of “burglary and drug possession, as well as rape, murder, and arson ” from getting free government lawyers to help them remain in America and commit more rapes, murders, burglaries and arsons.
Oregon launched its own taxpayer-funded legal defense program, the Equity Corps of Oregon, for illegals in 2022 and earlier this year approved another $25 million in funding for it to aid the estimated 108,000 illegal aliens being harbored by the state. Massachusetts has a smaller $5 million legal defense fund for illegals. In Texas, Harris County (Houston) has a multi-million legal defense fund. New Jersey and Washington are some other states that run similar programs.
Tens of millions in taxpayer money are being used to subsidize legal action on behalf of illegals against the federal government and the enforcement of immigration law. These subversive programs also serve as subsidies for radical open borders nonprofits and are often administered or involve the activities of state bar associations. And while states can allocate money as they please, subject to the will of the voters (who are rarely consulted about whether they want their money being used to keep violent illegal aliens on the streets of their communities), this is yet another example of state governments coordinating to subvert the enforcement of federal law.
If immigration enforcement is indeed an exclusively federal matter, as Democrat sanctuary states and the Obama and Biden administrations argued when suing to ban state enforcement, then sanctuary states must cease their efforts to interfere with federal enforcement.
When state legislators fight ICE agents, seek to pass laws banning ICE operations, urge their police forces to interfere with immigration raids and fund lawfare by illegal alien criminals, that’s insurrection. Taxpayers should not be in the position of funding both sides of a legal battle between illegal alien criminals and federal law enforcement. It’s time to end the lawfare.
