California continues to be at the forefront of the resistance against Donald Trump’s national mass deportation dragnet, with Gov. Jerry Brown setting aside an extra $15 million in the state budget to expand legal services for undocumented immigrant residents battling deportation:
The one-time cash infusion would boost the state government’s financial help to those in the country illegally to $33 million. Immigrant rights groups and lawyers hailed the increased funding in Brown’s revised state budget, calling it a signal that the state is committed to protecting families from what could happen under President Trump.
Nearly 2 million undocumented immigrants call California home, with data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy showing that they pay nearly $4 billion in state and local taxes annually. While an immigration attorney with the Centro Legal de la Raza called the $15 million a “game changer” in the state’s effort to protect residents, ”policy analysts said lawmakers might need almost double this amount to fund the other new legal initiatives under consideration at the state Capitol,” which includes training for public defenders and increasing funding for legal counsel for deported veterans:
“We urge the Legislature to deepen its investment in programs,” said Ronald Coleman, government affairs director for the California Immigrant Policy Center. “It is going to be key given that California can be ground zero for the devastation that we would face from Donald Trump’s deportation policies.”
Legal representation can make all the difference for an immigrant facing deportation, notes the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, as “an immigrant with a lawyer is seven times more likely than one without an attorney to win the right to stay in the U.S.” And education is working, too: in southern California, ICE arrests have not surged because more immigrants are beginning to know their rights, like the fact that an ICE agent cannot enter their home without a warrant.