Taxpayers subsidize LA unrest through California’s ‘protest-industrial complex’

Los Angeles has erupted into violence and at the center of it stands a cast of progressive activists and political operatives – some generously bankrolled by California taxpayers.

One organization in particular has emerged as a key player: the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA. The LA-based nonprofit has long pushed radical positions on immigration – for example, in 2018, it spearheaded a campaign to abolish ICE. Its stated mission is to “build power, transform public opinion, and change policies” to achieve “full human, civil, and labor rights.”

Critics might describe CHIRLA instead as a well-funded political engine for the open-borders left.

And taxpayers might question the source of that funding. According to its 2023 audit, CHIRLA received $34 million from the government, with 96 percent from the State of California. State funding of $32.5 million in 2023 represented a dramatic increase from $11.4 million in 2022.

CHIRLA leads the LA Rapid Response Network (LARRN), a hotline launched in January to collect tips about ICE activity and dispatch activists to intervene. Mayor Karen Bass herself has admitted that the city relies on this network to monitor federal immigration enforcement.

The LA protests kicked into high gear after David Huerta, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in California, was arrested for allegedly obstructing ICE officers. Huerta is a major political player in the state, leading a union of 750,000 workers that is a major donor to the Democratic Party. Though his spokesperson claimed he was merely observing, video released by the US Attorney appears to show him blocking an ICE vehicle.

CHIRLA sprang into action, organizing a rally to protest Huerta’s arrest. Demonstrators waved signs from the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a Communist group, and chanted familiar slogans: “No justice, no peace!” and “Stand up, fight back!” CHIRLA’s executive director referred to Huerta as her “brother,” highlighting the group’s close ties to organized labor.

Mayor Bass joined posted on X, “We will not stand for this” – “this” referring not to street violence, but to ICE enforcing federal law. In Spanish, she was more direct: “We are not going to permit these actions.”

Bass has a long-standing relationship with CHIRLA. Just last year, she congratulated the organization for acquiring a new building to continue advancing “justice and full inclusion for all immigrants.” In August, her office issued a press release bragging about securing federal funds for CHIRLA.

Roughly 37 percent of CHIRLA’s expenditures last year went to legal services, including representing both legal and undocumented immigrants in deportation proceedings. Whether California taxpayers should foot the bill for such services is an open question.

Far more dubious are the remaining 63 percent of expenditures. About 21 percent was spent on overhead – management and fundraising. The rest funded programs labeled “Organizing,” “Civic Engagement,” “Community Education and Outreach” and “Policy and Advocacy.” In other words, activism – and much of it overtly political.

Though it operates as a nonprofit, CHIRLA is highly politically active. In the 2023-2024 legislative session alone, it registered support for 47 bills in Sacramento and sent representatives to testify on 28 of them. Its affiliated political arm, the CHIRLA Action Fund, endorses Democratic candidates up and down the ballot – from Kamala Harris to Gavin Newsom to Adam Schiff.

No, CHIRLA staff were not the ones throwing rocks at police. But they built the infrastructure that mobilized protesters at a moment’s notice and amplified incendiary rhetoric as tensions boiled over. At minimum, their behavior was reckless, fueling the chaos.

In theory, 501(c)(3) organizations like CHIRLA are prohibited from engaging in partisan politics, but in practice, they are able to influence public opinion and lobby to such an extent the distinction seems meaningless. The Democrat supermajority in California seems happy to use nonprofits like CHIRLA to advance their ideological agenda, using taxpayer dollars, while maintaining the legal fiction of nonpartisanship.

Many of the protesters may have joined the demonstrations out of sincere personal conviction. But it’s hard to shake the sense that they’re being used – mobilized and radicalized by a network of nonprofits that depend on taxpayer dollars to wage ideological battles.

The result? A state that’s not just tolerating civil unrest, but subsidizing it.