Interim San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell is reportedly asking California for another $7 million so his city can defend every illegal immigrant that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains in the Bay Area.
ICE reportedly detained more than 200 illegal immigrants last week in sweeps across the Bay Area, and Farrell, according to KTVU, is partnering with Assemblyman Phil Ting to request $7 million in state funds for legal defense services. San Francisco will reportedly spend about $11 million this year on legal defense services, which “represents a 236-percent increase.”
“Our goal in this funding is to make sure that here in Northern California, and the court is in San Francisco physically, every single immigrant that comes before the court that the Trump administration tries to deport has legal representation,” Farrell reportedly said last week.
Farrell also claimed that defending illegal immigrants detained in the Bay Area is “not only the right thing to do, it is the san Francisco thing to do.”
“We are in unprecedented territory here,” he added. “[Trump] is targeting our immigrant community, here in San Francisco. We’re not going to stand for that.”