The Richmond City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved reallocating $1 million in city surplus funds to select organizations that provide legal resources and services to immigrants.
Since Pres. Trump’s inauguration city leaders have been seeking to strengthen their defense of the city’s undocumented community.
District 6 council member Claudia Jimenez said Tuesday that local nonprofits that educate the undocumented community and provide legal help are underfunded.
The money will come from the city’s $13 million 2024-25 fiscal year surplus and will also establish a public awareness campaign to help Richmond immigrants understand their constitutional rights. City staff will seek a contract with a fiscal manager who will oversee how the money is distributed to local nonprofits. The goal is to have a potential fiscal manager selected for the council to approve at its April 15 meeting.
Jimenez said that calls to Stand Together Contra Costa’s hotline have increased about 330% in the last month.
Hotline calls for immigration help up 330% in last month
Ali Saidi, director of Stand Together Contra Costa and deputy attorney with the county’s Office of the Public Defender, confirmed that hotline calls have increased since Trump took office and thanked the city council for establishing the fund.
“I’ve got to say that it is time to be proactive as opposed to reactive,” Saidi said. “Since this election we’ve seen an increase of fear, misinformation and unprecedented needs for accurate information, due process and navigation support for immigrant community members.”
Saidi also mentioned that there are many due process concerns for those facing immigration proceedings.
“There is no right to free appointed counsel in one’s deportation case,” he said. “So over 70% of people that are hoping to present asylum applications during their deportation proceedings have to go forward without the help of an immigration attorney. This is not due process.”
According to a 2024 Vera Institute of Justice report, the number of undocumented people with legal representation has grown from 145,892 cases in 2014 to more than 1 million last year. Yet because the increase in immigration court cases — which totaled 3.5 million nationwide last year — has far exceeded the growth in representation, representation rates have dropped.
Berta Alvarez, a Richmond resident and secretary for Rising Juntos West chapter, applauded the council.
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Current families in Richmond are scared and don’t know where to find legal help. If they do find something, the waiting list is very long or very expensive.”
— Berta Alvarez, Richmond resident and Rising Juntos secretary
“We all deserve the right to legal defense. Current families in Richmond are scared and don’t know where to find legal help,” she said. “If they do find something, the waiting list is very long or very expensive. All of this is taking a toll on families’ mental and emotional health.”
Richmond resident Denis Perez said that the city needs to continue to educate the undocumented community and said the $1 million fund is a good “proactive measure.”
Perez pointed to Alvarez and said she reminded him of his mother.
“My mom wouldn’t be here at these council meetings,” he said. “So we have to meet people where they are at.”
District 3 council member Doria Robinson, who co-authored the item with Jimenez and District 2 council member Cesar Zepeda, said the city council was duty-bound to take a stand to help families.
“I am also really concerned about the impact this has on our schools and our families and neighborhoods because our families are mixed (immigration status),” she said. “I feel like it is our responsibility to stand up for our community members and residents to help in this unprecedented moment. This is a moment like no other. With the surplus we have this is something that we can choose to do. We can choose to be on the right side of history.”
Jimenez told Richmondside before the meeting that the city’s approach to COVID, which was via a rapid response coalition, will be used as a template for administering the distribution of money and services.
Council member Jamelia Brown said she wanted to better understand how the distribution would be handled to ensure that organizations providing these services already are not left out.
“Once we select the person who will administer the funds, would all of the organizations that have been doing services already — like the 23rd Street Merchants hosting ‘Know your rights’ meetings with the police — how would we track those things and ensure that people are not being left out?” she asked.
Robinson replied that the city is following its procurement process by accepting applications for a contract to handle the disbursement of funds to local organizations.
“In that RFP process the city staff will help us make sure that we have accountability built into whatever, whoever, whomever gets chosen. There will be accountability measures for reporting and other things built into it,” she said. “Our city staff has a lot of experience making sure that they build these processes, grants, whatever to make sure that our contractors are accountable to what they said they were going to do.”
No money for city services, no money to enforce traffic violations, no money to repair our horrible streets, no money for policce, yet money, $1 million, to fund legal support for undocumented legal aid. Sorry, the council priorities are not helping the residents of Richmond.
Keep up the good work.