SAN FRANCISCO HAS FORMALLY accepted a $3.4 million grant from the nonprofit Crankstart Foundation to bolster the city’s legal resources for immigrants.
The grant will fund three additional immigration attorneys and a paralegal to work in the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office Immigration Defense Unit through February 2029. The grant was awarded earlier this year and was retroactively accepted under legislation signed last week by Mayor Daniel Lurie authorizing the Public Defender’s Office to receive and spend the money.
The funding comes as President Donald Trump’s administration is engaged in a policy of mass deportations that was enacted after he was inaugurated in January that has increasingly targeted immigrants with legal status who were formerly protected by federal guidance that de-prioritized minor offenses by green card holders.
Trump has also rescinded temporary protected status for thousands of asylum seekers and eliminated deferred action protections for immigrants who were brought here as children.
The administration has also sought to coerce sanctuary cities like San Francisco into sharing data on immigrant residents and assist federal immigration authorities in their mission. City leaders have refused and have waged a legal battle in federal court to unfreeze federal funding that the administration has tried to use as leverage.
Immigrants have a right to legal counsel in the United States for removal hearings, but they must pay for it, so there is no federal, publicly funded defense mechanism available for those who cannot afford representation. The Sixth Amendment, which guarantees a right to a lawyer to anyone regardless of their ability to pay one, does not apply in immigration cases because they are civil proceedings, not criminal, according to the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit legal aid and advocacy organization.
The availability of other legal assistance, though, still means that immigrants and detainees have a right to contact and hire a lawyer. The patchwork of nonprofit, pro bono and local public defenders are an attempt to provide universal legal representation to anyone regardless of cost in the absence of a federal service, according to the National Immigrant Justice Center.
In 2017, the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office launched one of the nation’s only publicly funded teams dedicated to defending immigrants. The team works on asylum and removal hearings, constitutional challenges, appeals, and related criminal cases that could potentially impact a client’s immigration status.
According to the legislation, which cites a study from the nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice, there are about 600,000 residents in the Bay Area who could be at risk of deportation, even though many have potential claims under asylum or other laws that could protect them.
San Francisco has always been a beacon for immigrants, and amidst growing threats of deportation from our federal government our immigrant communities deserve to feel safe and protected.
Supervisor Bilal Mahmood
Immigrants with lawyers are far more likely to achieve favorable outcomes, according to the American Immigration Council. Those numbers vary drastically depending on whether someone is detained at the time they seek counsel, with obstacles like distant holding facilities, language barriers and a lack of information about their rights making it less likely that a detained person will seek legal assistance.
An immigrant who has not been detained and has a lawyer is five times as likely to win their case as someone without legal representation, while an immigrant who has been detained and has legal representation is twice as likely to win at least temporary relief than one without a lawyer, according to the American Immigration Council.
Nationwide, there were more than 2.5 million immigration cases heard in 2024 without legal representation for the respondent, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.
Lurie said he would continue to support the city’s sanctuary policies that encourage interaction with law enforcement without fear of immigration enforcement and said the policy made the city safer.
Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who cosponsored the legislation, said the funding would give residents a better chance to defend themselves in deportation cases.
“San Francisco has always been a beacon for immigrants, and amidst growing threats of deportation from our federal government our immigrant communities deserve to feel safe and protected,” Mahmood said in a statement.