In the wake of last week’s threatened federal immigration “surge,” five San Francisco supervisors joined community leaders on the steps of City Hall Tuesday to reaffirm their commitment to increasing funding to immigrant legal defense.
Supervisor Connie Chan, who chairs the Board of Supervisors’ Budget Committee, announced legislation on Oct. 23 to allocate $3.5 million from the city’s general reserve to increase funding for immigration legal defense services and the city’s rapid-response network. The measure is being co-sponsored by Jackie Fielder, Bilal Mahmood, Shamann Walton, Myrna Melgar and Rafael Mandelman.
The supplemental funds would go to three networks that support San Francisco immigrants facing detention and deportation: the San Francisco Immigrant Legal and Education Network (SFILEN), the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative (SFILDC), and the San Francisco Rapid Response Network (SFRRN), a 24-hour hotline (415-200-1548) that local residents can use to report and verify ICE activity and connect detained people to an attorney.
“The status quo was not a good one”
Fielder has pushed for an increase in funding for these organizations since June, when, facing a budget deficit, Mayor Daniel Lurie’s two-year budget proposal cut funds for a number of immigrant services.
Although SFILEN and SFILDC avoided cuts, Lurie did not renew a one-time fund that Mayor London Breed had previously allocated to immigrant legal services, despite protests from Fielder, the sole “no” vote on the budget. Advocates warned that losing those funds would strain networks already stretched by the federal administration’s immigration crackdown.
In September, Sanika Mahajan, Mission Action’s director of community engagement, told El
Tecolote that while the Rapid Response Network remained committed to meeting the moment, if a wider crackdown were to occur in the region, networks around the Bay Area could quickly become strained due to funding constraints.
“There’s not enough” immigration attorneys, Mahajan said, adding that staff in the field are facing “much more difficult” working conditions. Current funding constraints, she added, make it complicated to give attorneys salary raises or meet all of their needs.”
The warning proved prescient. On Thursday, when the threat of a “surge” in federal immigration enforcement briefly became a reality, panic rippled through immigrant neighborhoods. According to Fielder, even though community organizations mobilized to inform immigrants of their rights, teachers still reported lower student attendance, Latino-serving businesses were emptier than usual, and many day laborers, domestic workers and street vendors opted to stay home.
“The status quo on Thursday was not a good one for San Francisco’s immigrant communities or our city,” said Board president Rafael Mandelman. “It was a status quo of terror and fear for too many people who, since January, have been living under this shadow.”
Mandelman acknowledged that fiscally, the city is headed into “choppier and choppier waters,” with an ongoing federal shutdown now threatening SNAP benefits and other anti-poverty programs, and potential Medicare and Medicaid cuts looming next year. Still, he said, the measure would ensure the city’s “dollars go as far as possible.”
For Fielder, the funding is a belated but vital step for San Francisco’s most vulnerable communities. The funds are just for the current fiscal year, and she is already anticipating working with the community to push for additional funds in the next budget cycle.
“I’m very happy that our board of supervisors is reconsidering this in light of the threat that we faced last week,” Fielder said in a video posted on her Instagram account. “We’re not out of the woods yet. We don’t know what this administration is going to do.”
A difficult reality on the ground
Although the planned Bay Area “surge” was ultimately called off by President Donald Trump, advocates note that ICE is still very much present in the Bay Area and operating in San Francisco, detaining immigrants during their check-in appointments and after their court hearings in ways lawyers say violate due process rights.
SFILEN and SFILDC continue to provide know-your-rights trainings, court accompaniment and legal representation for those arrested and detained. But with shifting federal policies and a growing need, the many nonprofits that are part of these organizations say they are often spread thin.
Since late May, ICE has arrested over 87 asylum seekers who were attending their immigration court hearings in San Francisco, said Milli Atkinson, Director of the Immigrant Legal Defense Program (ILDP) at the San Francisco Bar Association. Her team has supported a little over half of these immigrants, filing habeas petitions to secure their release.
“Every single one of the (45) people we were able to represent are now back home with their families, some of them being released within hours of their arrest,” said Atkinson. “But there are more people out there who desperately need our help and need our support.”
Meanwhile, the Rapid Response Network receives hundreds of calls, sometimes in a day, said Laura Valdez, executive director of Mission Action. On the day federal troops were expected to arrive in the Bay Area, the hotline fielded more than 500 calls, though no ICE activity was confirmed in the city.
“We need to ensure that our community has access to the hotline and that they also have the immigration legal services so that they can be released from detention,” Valdez said, adding that the hotline has been “struggling to keep up” with staffing needs to remain open 24/7.
On Tuesday, leaders of these on-the-ground organizations welcomed the proposed funding, saying collaboration with the city is essential to defend immigrant rights. Although the legislation has not been voted on yet, Mayor Daniel Lurie has expressed support, and Mandelman said he expects a unanimous vote from the Board.
“If we don’t defend due process today, talk to migrants who fled authoritarian governments and we can tell you about what that world looks like,” said Lariza Dugan-Cuadra, executive director of Carecen SF. “We’re in an existential moment. And so we appreciate this additional resource that will add power to (these) systems.”