California anti-ICE protest group funded by Biden DHS grant

CHIRLA has been engaging in and staging protests opposing ICE. Protesters with CHIRLA carry signs saying "Stop deportations: full rights for immigrants," "ICE: out of our communities," "Education not Deportation," "Stop the starvation, stop the deportations," and "The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go Now."

CHIRLA representatives spoke to the crowd. "Our community is under attack and has been terrorized," said CHIRLA executive director Angelica Salas. "These are workers, these are fathers, these are mothers." Of the initial award, $100,000 remains to be disbursed to the group.

On Friday, Salas spoke at a press conference of the CHIRLA-run LA Rapid Response Network "following the series of ICE raids conducted" that morning. On Facebook, publicizing the remarks, CHIRLA wrote "To our immigrant community: we see you, we hear you, and we will NOT stop fighting for you. We say NO deportations. NO to mass detentions. Families belong together! We belong here!"

Salas spoke about the group's "indignation as to what happened in our city, in our neighborhoods, in our workplaces. Our community is under attack and is being terrorized."

"These are workers," Salas continued, "these are fathers, these are mothers, and this has to stop. Immigration enforcement that is terrorizing our families throughout this country and picking up our people that we love must stop now.

"My call today is to all US citizens, because I want you to know if our rights are violated, if our constitutional rights are violated, if our due process rights are violated, then anybody's right can be violated.

"You think that you are protected because you are not an immigrant. I am here to tell you what is happening in this country and what we observe today is unprecedented, and we are in a situation where every single person who believes in democracy and believes in the ability of us to live free in this country is under attack," Salas said.

CHIRLA is also funded by ActBlue.

Biden's DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was the polar opposite of Trump's DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. Mayorkas was in favor of pathways to citizenship for those who came to the US illegally where Noem is enforcing immigration law. Shortly after taking office, Mayorkas spoke at a press briefing from the White House, telling would-be illegal border crossers "We're not saying don't come, we're saying don't come now."

His imperative was to create more semi-legal and legal roads to immigration. He worked to create ways for illegal immigrant spouses of US citizens to skip the normal process for citizenship and get fast-tracked through a special process just for those with that status. He also spearheaded a program where he used the concept of "humanitarian and public interest parole" into "a mass-migration tool" that overwhelmed America's immigration system.

In September 2021, Mayorkas said in ICE guidelines that since the federal government did "not have the resources to apprehend and seek the removal" of the "more than 11 million undocumented or otherwise removable noncitizens of the United States," it made more sense to "provide a path to citizenship or other lawful status" for those persons.

It was under Mayorkas' tenure at DHS that CHIRLA gained the $450,000 grant. CHIRLA is continuing to stage protests against the enforcement arm of the agency that provided them with this funding.

They are staging a protest for David Huerta, who was arrested on Friday during a riot.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris held an event as Senator-Elect in 2016 at CHIRLA headquarters and praised the group, saying that their "mission is one of the main reasons I ran to become a Senator."