Immigration

Anti-ICE Group Received Millions From Taxpayers In A Year — Here’s What We Got In Return

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Creative Commons/Flickr

A pro-illegal immigrant group received more than $8.7 million from taxpayers in the year that it helped spark destructive protests, but despite outcry and probes from Washington, it faces no consequences.

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) reported the government grants in its latest tax filing covering July 2024 through June 2025, the month that Los Angeles, California, was set ablaze by anti-deportation rioters. The chaos kicked off in June 2025 after CHIRLA created an anti-ICE network that led to a union leader’s arrest and encouraged supporters to arrive at a federal building for a rally that turned violent, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported. CHIRLA defended the mob as rioting against deportations spread across central California for days and caused damages somewhere between $32 million and $1 billion, according to local and federal agencies.

House and Senate lawmakers responded by announcing investigations into CHIRLA that have produced no findings or legislative reforms as leftists use the tax-exempt nonprofit system to fund radical causes. The House Judiciary Committee and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri sent CHIRLA letters in June demanding records of its finances and internal communications.

There have been no reports of CHIRLA handing over the information, and lawmakers have announced no further action. The House Judiciary Committee did not threaten a subpoena if CHIRLA ignored its requests, while Hawley threatened “potential referral for criminal investigation.” The IRS and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli did not respond to the requests for comment about a probe they announced last year into the anti-ICE riots, while the FBI’s Los Angeles office declined to comment.

CHIRLA’s $8,726,683 from taxpayers in fiscal year 2024 made up 35% of its total revenue, according to its records. CHIRLA has received more than $80.6 million in government grants since former President Joe Biden took office and opened the U.S. border to historic illegal immigration, tax filings show.

The nonprofit became a fixture in the U.S. immigration system after the Obama administration’s Board of Immigration Appeals tapped the group to provide immigration services in 2011. CHIRLA “filed thousands of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) initial and renewal applications” and gave thousands of migrants services such as “adjustment of status, U-Visa, deportation defense” and fighting for “Temporary Protected Status” from deportation since 2012, the group wrote. CHIRLA and other organizations sued the Trump administration in March for halting Biden-era federal grants for citizen naturalization programs, but district and appeals judges have upheld the move, court records show.

The House Homeland Security Committee sent a letter to CHIRLA in June demanding information on its immigration-related activities, another move that appears to have brought no results.

CHIRLA did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment. “We will not be intimidated for standing with immigrant communities and documenting the inhumane manner that our community is being targeted with the assault by the raids, the unconstitutional and illegal arrests, detentions, and the assault on our First Amendment rights,” CHIRLA told the press in response to Hawley’s letter.

Hawley’s office, the House Judiciary Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee did not respond on the record to the DCNF’s requests for comment. “The [Judiciary] Committee conducts to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse and stop taxpayer funding of violent anti-government activity and liberal pet projects,” a source familiar with the Judiciary Committee probe told the DCNF.

Demonstrators gathered at the Los Angeles federal building on June 6 to protest the arrest of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) leader David Huerta on charges of obstructing an immigration raid earlier that day. CHIRLA’s initially peaceful rally took a turn — protesters threw items at police, blocked a street and vandalized property in what cops declared an unlawful assembly, local media reported.

Fellow anti-ICE group Hispanic Federation complained in a June 9 press release that “members of our partners at CHIRLA” and another group were “detained and injured” while demonstrating.

CHIRLA partnered with SEIU and other groups in January 2025 to form the Los Angeles Rapid Response Network, a coalition that deploys activists to track ICE operations on foot. Huerta and the network were “activated” on June 6 as news broke of an ICE enforcement surge in the area, leading to his arrest after federal agents accused him of blocking ICE vehicles, leftist magazine Jacobin reported. ICE rounded up 1,618 illegal immigrants in June in the so-called sanctuary city, according to DHS data.

Following criticism of the June riots, CHIRLA maintained that its mission is “non-violent” while neglecting to call out violence or crimes that occurred. CHIRLA also posted a June 9 Instagram video denouncing President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in response to the unrest and demanding a right to “peacefully protest.”