California Democrats have authorized $50 million in state funding as part of an overall drive to protect residents from what lawmakers believe to be “inhumane” threats posed by President-elect Trump’s forthcoming administration.
State Sen. Budget Committee Chair Scott Wiener (D) announced on Monday that he would amend legislation to provide $25 million to support legal aid services for California residents at risk of deportation. The bill is the result of a special legislative session that began last month, amid Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) efforts to “Trump-proof” the Golden State from potential federal interference.
Wiener’s Monday announcement, made on behalf of the Senate Democratic Caucus, complements another $25 million authorized by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D) in the State Assembly. Those funds will go to the California Department of Justice — a measure that Newsom began seeking last month, at the start of the special legislative session.
“California faces two massive challenges,” Wiener said in a statement, noting that the first revolves around rebuilding the lives of tens of thousands of residents in the wake of “horrific destructive wildfires in Los Angeles.”
The second challenge, he explained, is “an incoming federal administration that has vowed to make it harder for Los Angeles to recover, by withholding disaster relief and deporting immigrant Angelenos who have been impacted by the fires and who are actively helping their neighbors.”
“National MAGA Republicans wasted no time politicizing the horrific tragedy unfolding in Los Angeles,” Wiener said. “As the fires burned, the president-elect, his allies, and senior congressional Republican officials proposed withholding California’s disaster aid and imposing unprecedented conditions on this humanitarian relief. They also spread absurd conspiracy theories about the fires.”
Describing such threats as “inhumane,” Wiener stressed the importance of the special session funding agreement, as well as California’s position as “a bulwark against Trump’s extremist agenda.”
