California governor Gavin Newsom (D.) personally secured $500,000 in 2023 for a nonprofit group that supports defunding police and recently launched a bond fund for illegal immigrants in ICE custody, according to state records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Newsom in July 2023 asked the James Irvine Foundation, a private foundation that supports low-income workers in California, to donate $500,000 to the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), a group that supports defunding the police. Though the funds didn’t come from Newsom’s own pocket, the James Irvine Foundation cut its check specifically at Newsom’s request, according to California’s "behested payments" database, which discloses whenever state elected officials solicit donations to a third party.
The Democratic governor "behested" the $500,000 contribution to ImmDef to support its efforts to "expand critical services offered to migrants crossing the US border," according to the California database. Those services include ImmDef’s Detained Immigrant Bond Fund, which helps illegal immigrants get out of federal custody. The group launched the bond fund on June 7, just one day after anti-ICE riots broke out in Los Angeles, the Free Beacon reported.
Newsom’s efforts to bankroll ImmDef in 2023 could come back to bite him as he works to distance himself from the Democratic Party's progressive flank.
In March, for example, Newsom denounced the "defund the police" movement as "lunacy" during an interview with conservative host Charlie Kirk. It is the same sort of "lunacy" that Newsom bankrolled when he "behested" $500,000 to ImmDef, which in June 2020 publicly committed to "joining the calls to dismantle the police state by defunding and decreasing police budgets." The group also said it’s "high time we abolish the immigration prison system and abolish ICE."
Newsom’s office did not return a request for comment.
More recently, Newsom has sought to rehabilitate his image on immigration issues. During a podcast interview last Monday on the Shawn Ryan Show, the California governor bemoaned the sanctuary city policies that were in place in San Francisco when he became the city’s mayor in 2004, and said he wears the criticism he received from the left when he reversed those policies as a badge of honor.
"I’m happy to advocate for eliminating sanctuary policy," Newsom said during that interview. "I closed a loophole as it relates to coordinating with ICE upon arrest. And people were pissed. When I left the mayor's office, they reversed that."
Newsom told a different version of that same story during his 2018 campaign for California governor. During that campaign, Newsom apologized for reporting juvenile illegal immigrant felons to ICE as mayor of San Francisco.
"I’ll just say this to my critics: Fair game," Newsom said in 2018. "Looking back, there were things we could have done differently. I’m very honest about that."
ImmDef isn’t the only pro-illegal immigration group Newsom has "behested" contributions to. In February, he "behested" $110,000 from the Stuart Foundation to Immigrant Legal Defense, a charity that provides legal services to immigrants and advocates for "abolishing immigration detention and reimagining the U.S. immigration system entirely," state disclosures show.
Newsom has "behested" more than $324 million in payments from a long list of nonprofits and private corporations with business in California since he assumed statewide office as lieutenant governor in 2011. That includes $2.4 million that Newsom has "behested" to his wife’s charity, the California Partners Project, and another $6 million to the California Protocol Foundation, a charity that paid for Newsom’s trip to Super Bowl LIV in Miami in January 2020, the Free Beacon reported.
On several occasions, Newsom used his office to benefit corporations that donated to his wife’s charity at his request. In April 2024, Newsom asked the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria to donate $500,000 to his wife’s charity. A few months later, in August 2024, Newsom sent a letter to the Biden Interior Department urging it to reject a bid from Graton Rancheria’s rival tribe that was seeking to open a competing $700 million casino just 15 miles away from its own gambling compound north of San Francisco.
Later, in April 2025, Newsom "behested" another $500,000 from Graton Rancheria to his wife’s charity. The following month, Newsom filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in a last-ditch effort to stop the tribe’s rival from opening its competing casino, the Free Beacon reported.