Democrats refused to debate an amendment to add those assurances to their legislation
California governor Gavin Newsom (D.) is set to sign a $50 million plan aimed at suing the Trump administration and blocking its mass deportations. State Democrats passed the plan on Monday—after voting down an amendment that would have blocked state funds from benefiting illegal immigrant felons.
The legislation will send $25 million to the California Department of Justice to sue the Trump administration and another $25 million for nonprofit legal services, including deportation defenses. The vote was initially scheduled for last Thursday, but Democratic leaders abruptly canceled the proceedings after Republican assemblywoman Leticia Castillo threatened to force a public debate on an amendment to block funds from bankrolling immigration legal services for convicted felons. The Democratic assembly speaker’s office said lawmakers were going to “look closely” at the plan to make sure its defenses were “airtight” and would “protect all Californians.”
But the legislation didn’t change. When Castillo presented her amendment, Assembly budget chair Jesse Gabriel (D.) called it “unnecessary,” and Democrats voted to discard it without debate.
Instead, Democrats wrote an accompanying letter Monday to “clarify” the intent of the package.
“None of the funding in SBX1-2 is intended to be used for immigration-related services for individuals with serious or violent felony convictions,” the letter to the chief clerk of the assembly read.
This letter is purely symbolic, according to Chris Micheli, a longtime Sacramento lawyer and expert in California legislative procedure.
“Such a letter does not have any legal or binding effect,” Micheli wrote in an email. “They are most often associated with when the judiciary is trying to determine a matter of statutory ambiguity. Courts in this state generally give them little legal weight because they are not considered to be statements of the entire body.”
The plan’s approval on party-line votes comes weeks behind the schedule set by Newsom and Democratic lawmakers, who wanted the funding in place before Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. Before the delay over Castillo’s amendment, the Los Angeles wildfires forced lawmakers to put the special session on pause.
In a testy floor debate, Democrats attacked Trump and his immigration policies. Assemblywoman Tina McKinnor (D.) said that passing the plan would protect Californians from “a very real domestic threat to the Constitution,” while assemblywoman Liz Ortega (D.) touted her illegal immigrant parents that inspired her to run for office.
“Apparently this legislation is to protect us from the president, which is absolutely ridiculous,” Republican assemblyman Bill Essayli said. “He had a mandate to come into office and to enforce the laws of the United States. That’s exactly what he is doing.”
Two sources told KCRA that Newsom himself asked the legislature to change the legislation so it would be clear the money would not fund legal assistance for illegal immigrants with felony convictions, though the governor’s office did not weigh in on the claim.
The $50 million plan stems from Newsom’s directive two days after the November election when he called a special session for the legislature to develop a resistance plan with at least $25 million earmarked for federal lawsuits. During Trump’s first term, California sued the president’s administration 123 times at a cost of about $41 million, according to a CalMatters analysis.
Legislators have added millions more for nonprofits, including those that defend illegal aliens from deportation and help move their families into the United States. Under their plan, some $10 million would go to the California Department of Social Services to fund nonprofit grants or contracts for immigration legal services and removal defense. The department last year shelled out $37 million in grants to pro-immigration nonprofits like Al Otro Lado, Catholic Charities of Los Angeles, and Chinese for Affirmative Action, the Washington Free Beacon has reported.
Another $5 million would go to the nonprofit California Access to Justice Commission to expand its grants to legal aid groups. The commission’s top-funded nonprofits have included the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, which works to release detained illegal immigrants, and Centro Legal de la Raza, a nonprofit firm that sues to fight detention of illegal immigrants as well as landlords and employers over alleged violations.
An additional $10 million, earmarked for the California State Bar’s Legal Services Trust-Fund Commission, could help illegal immigrants as well. The legislature has designated this money for legal services for indigent people at risk of detention, deportation, eviction, wage theft, and more. The commission already sends money to pro-immigration nonprofits like the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Law San Francisco, Al Otro Lado, and the LGBT Asylum Project in San Francisco, which says its clients come to the city’s Castro District, a gay tourism hub, “to find a sanctuary.”
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