Blue Strongholds Funnel 'Welfare for Immigration Lawyers'
Blue Strongholds Funnel 'Welfare for Immigration Lawyers'
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July 31, 2017
As their battle with President Trump over immigration escalates, cities and states run by Democrats are funneling millions of dollars to progressive organizations to provide undocumented aliens with something courts have ruled they are not entitled to: free lawyers.
Even as it faces severe fiscal problems, Chicago recently committed $1.3 million to such aid, while the District of Columbia will spend at least $500,000. Cash-strapped New York state has earmarked $10 million while New York City has pledged another $16 million. Seattle’s City Council approved $750,000. All told, at least a dozen jurisdictions have budgeted more than $54
million to provide legal assistance for illegal immigrants.
Under a law that sailed through the state legislature last month, California will spend at least $15 million to pay lawyers to represent defendants at deportation hearings. In Los Angeles and San Francisco, Democratic elected officials have approved spending millions more.
Since public defenders’ offices, meant for indigent citizens, are overworked and underfunded, much of the new money will be given to left-wing nonprofits and legal advocacy groups – meaning loyal interest groups are rewarded with a windfall.
“In some of these places, this is basically welfare for immigration lawyers,” said Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative advocacy group based in Washington. “Do these cities and states have enough programs for the homeless, poor, children and veterans that they can also afford funds to pay lawyers to help illegal aliens remain in the country? There’s no poor person being foreclosed on that couldn’t use a handout? Someone in family court?
“American citizens aren’t entitled to representation in civil courts,” Vaughan added, “and now they are going to prioritize people who should not be here to begin with.”
In addition to religious charities and labor unions, groups getting grants to represent illegal immigrants include the Social Justice Collaborative, the Empire Justice Center, Asian Americans
Advancing Justice, La Raza, and OneJustice, according to state reports. Some of the groups have lobbying arms and all of them champion progressive causes, from raising the minimum wage to gender and racial equity issues.
Supporters say that in light of the Trump administration’s crackdown, immigrants need legal protection more than ever. The fabric of the communities they represent will be torn by aggressive enforcement of immigration laws, they argue. Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel made this case last December as his city became one of the first to subsidize immigrant legal aid, even before Trump was inaugurated.
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A San Francisco protest against President Trump's immigration crackdown. AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez
“Chicago has a proud history of diversity and inclusion, and my administration will do everything in our power to ensure that immigrants remain safe, secure and supported,” Emanuel said in a statement. “Because the election has created anxiety and uncertainty, we’ve created a legal fund to help ensure immigrants and refugees have access to legal guidance.”
Diverting money from government coffers to politically simpatico advocacy groups is not new. The Obama Justice Department allowed big banks and other corporations to reduce large penalties and fines by making “donations” to approved liberal legal aid groups and other nonprofits.
But directing aid to advocates for noncitizens in particular creates dissonance with the Democratic Party’s much-publicized recent pivot to a “better deal” for middle-class Americans, who turned to Trump decisively in key 2016 election battlegrounds.
None of the groups getting immigrant legal aid money responded when contacted for comment by RealClearInvestigations. But, like Vaughan, Republican lawmakers objected to non-citizens getting favorable new treatment.
“This is about priorities and California is on the wrong track,” state Sen. Joel Anderson, R-San Diego, said. “This isn’t the highest, best use of our money when one in five Californians are at or below the poverty line. If a defense is going to be provided for these people, then it should be the feds who provide it because we aren’t fighting a state law here; instead, we are offering a [newly] privileged class of people special access to our budget.”
Anderson is also bothered by the millions of dollars flowing to a familiar constellation of liberal outfits in California, noting that “most of the groups who are lobbying for this would be the recipients of all this money.”
The money will pay for attorneys representing immigrants in the nation’s administrative courts. Although the Constitution guarantees representation, including for noncitizens, in criminal matters, these hearings involve civil matters exclusively. Even the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, regarded as the most liberal court in the federal judiciary, has ruled that at expedited hearings illegal immigrants have no right to an attorney.
Consequently, about two-thirds of illegal immigrants facing deportation hearings do not have a lawyer and most of those who do have relied on pro bono representation. Citing studies by scholars at UCLA and Seton Hall University, advocates argue that lawyers make a difference. While the claim can be challenged -- do lawyers take the cases that have the best chance of winning and thus skew the totals? – there seems little question that they can’t hurt.
There are some disagreements among supporters about who should qualify for representation. In California, for instance, lawmakers bickered about what sorts of crimes should disqualify an illegal immigrant from the new benefit. State Sen. Ben Hueso, a prominent sponsor of legislation to bolster California’s sanctuary status, wanted illegal aliens to be eligible for the fund regardless of criminal background; the legislature eventually approved a less expansive version that still left some critics fuming that taxpayers are defending convicted felons.
Although illegal immigration is a longstanding issue, these legal defense fund efforts came after the election of Donald Trump. Indeed, many officials explicitly cited his victory as the trigger for the new spending, a sign that the passive posture long practiced by sanctuary cities -- generally refusing to help federal officials enforce laws -- has become more active resistance.
The irony is that while candidate Trump has vowed to crack down on illegal immigration, deportations nationwide have fallen month-over-month lately, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement statistics. From a high of 23,698 last October, deportations from all 24 of ICE’s “area of responsibilities” fell to 16,568 in May and 14,283 in June. On the other hand, there has been a slight uptick in deportations in the Democratic strongholds and big cities where the funds are being created. ICE’s Los Angeles area, for instance, had 558 deportations in Oct. 2016, and while June 2017 had fewer (510), that drop came after there were 712 deportations in May. Similarly, the Chicago area’s figures went from 323 last October to 454 in April and 576 in May before dropping back to 384 last month.
But whether the deportation numbers are rising or falling, budget shortfalls and long-range fiscal challenges are the norm for almost all the cities and states approving this new spending. California, which has sharply raised gasoline taxes, is trying to plug a projected $1.6 billion deficit, while in Albany lawmakers contend with an even more whopping multi-billion-dollar shortfall. Crain’s Chicago Business pegged that city at around $138 million in the red for 2017, while Los Angeles’ looming deficit tops $220 million. As a result, the few opponents of the spending in these Democratic strongholds believe elected officials are throwing money they can ill afford at a job they should not perform.
“It’s a fund for illegals, by definition,” said Chicago Alderman Nicholas Sposato, one of the two dissenting votes on the city’s 50-member Board of Aldermen. “What baffles me is that when we don’t have money for so many things we vote to spend money on this. I’m baffled that my African-American colleagues backed this. They are always saying they don’t have enough money for this or for that on the South Side or the West Side, but they are OK with spending more than a million dollars to help people here illegally?”
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Washington, D.C. Mayor, Muriel Bowser at Trump Tower. AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Among the advocacy groups declining to respond to requests for comment for this article were the Vera Institute for Justice, which will get the largest share of money from New York state’s Liberty Defense Project ($4 million); the Empire Justice Center and the New York Immigration Coalition. Similarly, the Heartland Alliance, whose National Immigration Justice Center will get the $1.3 million in Chicago, did not respond to questions sent in writing. In California, several groups did not reply to emails or phone calls.
Democratic lawmakers who support the defense funds often present them as necessary responses to a perceived threat from a hostile administration, and acknowledge no distinction between rights guaranteed to U.S. citizens under the Constitution and those due other “residents.”
“We must ensure that all District residents can take advantage of their federal and constitutional rights,” Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel E. Bowser said in January. The goal of creating a legal defense fund for illegal immigrants was part of a policy Bowser’s executive counsel boasted would move the nation’s capital “beyond sanctuary” status.
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