Hours after President Donald Trump withdrew a threat to send a “surge” of federal agents to San Francisco, Supervisor Connie Chan announced the city would direct an additional $3.5 million to immigrant services.
Chan announced new legislation to bolster legal aid for immigrants and the San Francisco Rapid Response Network, which provides a 24-hour hotline for verifying immigration raids and connecting those detained to attorneys.
Chan, the chair of the Board of Supervisors Budget Committee, made the announcement alongside her co-sponsors: Supervisors Bilal Mahmood, Chyanne Chen, Jackie Fielder and Shamann Walton. They will formally introduce the legislation at the Board of Supervisors meeting next Tuesday.
“Despite this morning’s news, we know federal agents have been in San Francisco already. For months, we’ve seen how those attempting to follow our legal process abiding by the law at immigration centers are detained during routine check-ins,” Mahmood said, referring to the arrests of asylum-seekers at immigrant court and regular Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-ins.
“There are still hundreds of local immigrants, including children, who are forced to endure deportation proceedings without legal counsel,” Fielder said. “Our San Francisco Rapid Response team has been operating 24 hours, seven days a week for nearly ten years and is under severe pressure due to a historic number of calls.”
Before the new allocation, $10.5 million was earmarked for legal aid and the Rapid Response Network.
During the city’s difficult budget process this year, which required addressing an $800 million deficit, Lurie declined to renew a one-time fund of $878,000 given to immigrant legal services by former Mayor London Breed at the end of 2024.
“Mayor Lurie preserved millions of dollars for legal defense, despite an historic budget deficit, and we will strengthen our close partnership with our immigrant community through this important new funding,” spokesperson Charles Lutvak wrote in a statement.
Meanwhile, the need for immigrant legal help within the city has skyrocketed.
“This funding is urgent,” wrote Lariza Dugan-Cuadra, the executive director of CARECEN, in a June email to the mayor’s staff obtained by Mission Local in August. CARECEN is one of 16 nonprofits in San Francisco’s Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative.
The collaborative, which is funded by the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, provides legal defense and, along with the Immigrant Legal & Education Network, supports the Rapid Response Network.
In September, Mission Action, the organization that runs the San Francisco Rapid Response Network, told El Tecolote that if a wider immigration crackdown were to occur, the network could quickly become strained.
City officials then planned to solicit donations to make up the difference. In June 2025, local billionaire Michael Moritz’s foundation Crankstart gave $3.4 million to the public defender’s office, which has an immigration unit.
According to Chan, the funding would be distributed through the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development.
“If we are going to say that we want to fight the attacks on our city, then we have to put our resources where our mouths are,” Walton said.
Additional reporting by Mariana Duran from El Tecolote.
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Such fancy footwork after Lurie with Mahmood’s support cut immigrant defense funding just a few months ago.
Mahmood has stated ad nauseam that he and Lurie move in “lockstep.”
He wishes!
Why doesn’t the mayor cut, say, $50 million out of the obscene $850 million police budget. That money could make a huge difference for SF non-profits that are struggling to help low-income people in many different ways, including legal representation of immigrants facing ICE gestapo agents.
What are the success rates of these legal services against an outlaw government? “Mission Action” aka Dolores Street Community Services is one of “those” politically connected city funded nonprofits that oversee the D9 supervisor, so the rebuttable presumption is that there’s something crooked going on here.
I thought part of the problem is that detained illegals are often shipped by ICE out of the city, and sometimes even out of the state, for processing. That makes it hard or impossible for any local legal services to support and represent them. It is the central flaw in any local municipality trying to interfere with Federal law enforcement.
Separately, the Public Defender’s office announced that it is refusing to defend everyone, and there aren’t enough pro bono lawyers to do it, so violent criminals will be released into our midst.
Wouldn’t a better use of this $3.5 million be to pay some defense attorneys so we can keep the violent prisoners in custody?
Do law-abiding citizens matter to San Francisco AT ALL?
If they are over-extended to the point that they literally don’t have the physical time to devote to people’s new criminal cases, as they are now, that’s not “refusing to defend everyone” at all and the characterization is intentionally dishonest. The public defender’s office has already asked for increased funding and they will probably get it in time, but that has nothing to do with either the current backlogged courts nor the specific focus on immigration court cases that this addresses.
If you are intending not to understand so you can be outraged, hey great.