Newsom’s illegal-alien funding spree

 California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s been a vintner, a lieutenant governor and the mayor of San Francisco. Now it seems he may be able to add far-left financier to the list.

A recent expose by City Journal chronicles how Mr. Newsom’s government “granted approximately $1 billion to an army of nonprofits that has encouraged unchecked numbers of migrants to enter the country, fought deportation orders in the courts, and led street protests against [U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement].”

That’s in addition to the multi-million-dollar-per-year fraud Mr. Newsom is reportedly overseeing in his state’s In-Home Supportive Services Program, which City Journal covered last month, as well as homeless advocacy-group funding fraud, which we featured in these pages a few weeks ago

Since he took office in 2019, Mr. Newsom’s government has awarded huge immigrant-services-related contracts to far-left, anti-American organizations, according to the report.

In a 2024 Instagram video from one, Al Otro Lado, which has gotten over $2 million from California since 2019, the group’s managing attorney for litigation says, “I honestly just believe that there’s no reason … why we should have borders.

A 2024 TikTok video from Al Otro Lado’s account is titled “Books from our library that remind us the U.S. is [feces emoji]” and features shots of the covers of such communist tripe as “Separated: Inside and American Tragedy” by Jacob Soboroff and “Undoing Border Imperialism” by Harsha Walia.

California, under Mr. Newsom, has also granted large sums of state money to organizations that openly aid illegal aliens. The Immigrant Defenders Law Center (“ImmDef”), which has gotten at least $6.7 million on Mr. Newsom’s watch, has labeled the Trump administration “white supremacist” and called for the abolition of ICE.

In 2023, the state-bankrolled San Diego County Immigrant Legal Defense Program, which is operated by several groups, including ImmDef, “came under scrutiny for using county funds to provide immigration legal services to 34 noncitizens convicted of crimes such as drug trafficking, money laundering and acts ’involving moral turpitude,’” City Journal reports.

Then there’s the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles (CHIRLA), an organization that’s received $110 million in California cash in the past seven years. This is the group that manages the Los Angeles Rapid Response Network, which tracks ICE raids and works “to shut down detention centers.”

Last summer, the House opened an inquiry into whether CHIRLA had used “federal funds to support violent criminal activity that impedes the enforcement of federal immigration law,” according to The New York Post.

Taxpayer money shouldn’t go toward aiding and abetting illegal activity, and our elected leaders shouldn’t be signing the check. California voters should recall Mr. Newsom, but given that the not-so-good governor survived a recall election in 2021, they probably won’t.

While Mr. Newsom’s term ends in January 2027, California’s mess is now trickling down the stairs of the rest of the nation — so the administration should act.

The Trump Justice Department has opened an investigation into the Golden State’s practice of housing biological males in women’s prisons. It should now open one into this apparent misuse of taxpayer cash to support illegality.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/may/2/editorial-newsoms-illegal-alien-funding-spree/