The various Democratic-aligned groups helping to fuel the anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement uprising in Los Angeles are well funded and part of a coordinated operation despite organizers’ efforts to make them appear spontaneous and grassroots.
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, one of the activist organizers at the center of the Los Angeles protests, received millions in taxpayer dollars through government grants, including federal funding for immigration assistance services, a Washington Examiner review found.
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Formed in 1986, CHIRLA is a 501(c)(3) legal services provider helping illegal immigrants, including those convicted of crimes, avoid deportation.
CHIRLA informed criminally convicted immigrants of California’s Proposition 47, which downgraded and resentenced certain crimes. Under this 2014 state statute, felonies involving drug possession, fraud, and theft were classified as misdemeanors instead.
“Prop 47 could help clean your criminal record,” CHIRLA previously advertised, noting that noncitizens with criminal convictions may be deported.
According to CHIRLA’s tax filing for fiscal 2023, the charity reported receiving approximately $34 million in government grants that year, up from $12.4 million in grant money in 2022.
Grant records show the Department of Homeland Security, the federal agency CHIRLA is protesting, has awarded the anti-deportation group with several six-figure grants since 2014 as part of a citizenship and assimilation program that financially supports organizations “actively working to remove barriers to naturalization.” Categorized under “Citizenship Education and Training,” the DHS grants totaling $1.2 million to CHIRLA were earmarked for “citizenship instruction and naturalization application services.”
On X, a DHS spokeswoman said the Trump administration cut off CHIRLA’s federal funding in March, including nixing nearly $101,100 remaining of a two-year, $450,000 grant yet to be paid out. According to a termination letter addressed to CHIRLA, the DHS determined that “the scope of work performed under this award no longer effectuates the program goals and the Department’s priorities.” CHIRLA was accordingly instructed to cease all federally funded activities carried out under the auspices of the award.
CHIRLA has also received a significant amount of taxpayer funding from the state of California, according to a Washington Examiner review of statewide grant records. In 2023, the state’s Department of Social Services awarded CHIRLA about $3 million for an initiative providing free legal services to immigrants, such as application assistance in “cases seeking immigration remedies,” i.e., deportation relief. Since at least 2020, CHIRLA has been granted $3 million each fiscal year through this legal assistance program. In 2022, CHIRLA received $1.37 million from California’s social services department, specifically to provide pro bono defense services in removal proceedings.
CHIRLA’s deportation defense team, nicknamed “Warriors for Justice,” was bankrolled by the Los Angeles Justice Fund, a public-private partnership between liberal grantmaking foundations, the city of Los Angeles, and Los Angeles County.
A spokesperson for CHIRLA denied that the group had anything to do with this weekend’s riot-related violence in a statement to the New York Post. The spokesperson said CHIRLA only organized a press event on Thursday to protest the ICE roundups and had been deploying legal observers to immigration courts and detention centers.
“If you see ICE in LA, don’t stay silent. Report it to the LA Rapid Response Network,” CHIRLA wrote last week on Bluesky, the political Left’s alternative to X.
CHIRLA launched the Los Angeles Rapid Response Network to alert organizers to ICE activity in the region. In response to reports of immigration enforcement, LARRN reportedly sends out “cells” composed of immigration lawyers, legal observers, and activist organizers to mobilize counter-efforts against ICE operations.
CHIRLA, which is aiming to raise $65 million in funds for its new headquarters, also solicits donations online through ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s primary fundraising platform, which is under federal investigation for facilitating a number of suspicious foreign transactions.
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The San Francisco-headquartered Party for Socialism and Liberation, a radical-left political party with well-documented ties to the Chinese Communist Party, is also at the forefront of the resistance against ICE.
PSL leaders are activating followers in other U.S. cities, not just Los Angeles, to appear in the streets and intimidate ICE agents.
PSL Los Angeles called for a mass mobilization on Sunday in front of City Hall to get “ICE Out of LA.” PSL Milwaukee convened an “emergency protest” in solidarity with Los Angeles. Jessica Solis, an organizer of PSL’s San Antonio arm, which led a parallel protest Sunday, said the more cities and communities that rise against ICE arrests, the more difficult a federal crackdown will become, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
PSL is a cog in an influence machine. The Network Contagion Research Institute, a watchdog monitoring geopolitical influence, extensively reported on PSL’s connections to the Chinese Communist Party by way of its benefactor: Shanghai-based businessman Neville Roy Singham, a Maoist megadonor known for backing CCP-praising nonprofit groups and media entities that echo pro-Beijing propaganda.
A longtime defender of China’s human rights record, PSL has hailed Mao Zedong’s Chinese Revolution as “a historic achievement” and publicly denied the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
In 2020, several PSL members were charged with rioting, inciting a riot, attempted first-degree kidnapping, and obstructing government operations, among a slew of offenses, for forming a seven-hour blockade outside a police precinct in Aurora, Colorado. According to authorities, the mob blocked doors and adjacent roads. All of the charges were dropped after PSL demanded the case’s dismissal.
PSL, which participated in the anti-Israel encampment on Columbia University’s campus, came under fire for its past association with Elias Rodriguez, who is accused of gunning down two Israeli Embassy employees in Washington, D.C. The socialist party has since rejected “any attempt to associate the PSL with the DC shooting” and said that Rodriguez had briefly been affiliated with PSL’s now-defunct Chicago chapter back in 2017.
CHIRLA, PSL, and DHS were contacted for comment.