California government is the Democrat Party, and NGOs are the bridge. It’s like looking at a ball of yarn: The threads wrap together.
That long-understood interconnection has just resurfaced in the form of a new allegation. In California this week, Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton made a claim that didn’t really surprise anyone.
The conservative California journalist Jennifer Van Laar has been reporting for years, using financial data compiled by the Bay Area lawyer Laura Powell, that the large and omnipresent Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) is a government-fed activist group:
According to a financial audit submitted to the State of California, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023, CHIRLA took in $34 million from various government contracts, and 96 percent of the government funding was from the State of California. That amount is nearly three times the prior year’s government contract total. CHIRLA’s total revenue for the year ending June 30, 2023, was $45 million, meaning that 75.5 percent of its revenue came from government contracts.
Citing the popular X account called DataRepublican, the House Judiciary Committee has used the same number: $34 million in fiscal year 2023.
As the famous movie quote says, “They’re not confessing. They’re bragging.” The connections between state government and NGOs aren’t obscure. In a press release this February, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a plan to provide tens of millions of dollars in state funding to immigration-focused nonprofits: “Governor Newsom launches new state investment and philanthropic collaboration to continue supporting families under federal assault.”
The category of things that the state calls immigrant services is enormous, and the private entities that provide those services live on a steady stream of public funding. Non-governmental organizations frequently aren’t non-governmental. Instead, they’re government cut-outs, state funding moved to private bank accounts for private activity.
Newsom’s press releases also explicitly cite the state’s policymaking partnerships with CHIRLA, favorably quoting its director on the work they do together.
You can find a detailed discussion of CHIRLA’s funding sources at the InfluenceWatch website, and you can track the same money by looking for it on government websites. The organization gets federal, state, county, and city funding.
In news stories following the Republican candidate’s announcement, CHIRLA denies Hilton’s claim: “CHIRLA disputes that characterization, saying any public funds it receives are strictly limited to legal services and social support programs, not political or protest work.”
But watch how this works in practice.
You can find the most recent IRS financial disclosure form (called the Form 990) for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights here. It discloses $8,726,683 in government grants to fund purposes like “Legal Immigration Services,” “Community Outreach and Education,” and “community organizing leadership development, strategies and tactics.”
You can find the most recent Form 990 for the completely separate Californians For Human [sic] Immigrant Rights Leadership Action Fund here. It has far less revenue and no government funding, and it conducts “Electoral Activities” and “Issue Advocacy Activities,” including the endorsement of candidates for public office. The CHIRLA Leadership Action Fund has explicitly endorsed Xavier Becerra for California governor.
So CHIRLA is government-funded, and does community organizing but doesn’t do political work, while the CHIRLA Action Fund endorses candidates and lobbies for legislation. They’re completely different organizations.
From the Form 990, here’s the location and leadership of the service and community activism-focused CHIRLA:
From the other Form 990, here’s the location and leadership of the politically focused CHIRLA Action Fund:
See, totally different. The CHIRLA Leadership Action Fund is working to get Xavier Becerra elected as the governor of California, but the government-funded CHIRLA has nothing to do with it. You can see how true that is with your own eyes.
