‘Immigrants are welcome here,’ coalition demands more protection in L.A. County budget

“No hate, no fear; immigrants are welcome here,” and “immigrant power” were just some of the chants that opened up a press conference held by the Immigrants Are LA (IRLA) coalition, where it unveiled the coalition’s priorities and proposal for the 2025-2026 Los Angeles County budget.

IRLA, a coalition of over 100 grassroots immigrant organizations, presented and released their 11-page immigrant-centered budget proposal outside of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors meeting. The proposal calls on L.A. County leaders to make exponential investments in the protection and economic and social well-being of the roughly 3.5 million immigrants in the county.

“Immigrants are the heart of L.A.They are workers driving our economy, they are our neighbors enriching our community, the parents shaping our future,” Angelica Salas, executive director of CHIRLA, said on Tuesday morning. “But despite their enormous contributions, they face systemic barriers that limit our ability to thrive...That is why we are here today: to demand a county budget that meets the needs of immigrant residents.” 

The need for more of the L.A. County budget to go into funding the basic needs of immigrants and undocumented people is more important than ever, according to the coalition, which referenced the latest wildfires that fiercely spread throughout the county, the ICE raids happening in various places of the nation, the attack against birthright citizenship and the freeze of federal grants by President Donald Trump. 

“The county has the responsibility and the opportunity to lead by example, showing the nation what equity and inclusion truly mean in action,” Salas said. 

The multi-billion L.A. County budget, allocated for the largest municipal government in the nation, is bigger than that of Kansas, Montana and Vermont combined. 

Last October, the Board of Supervisors approved the 2024-2025 fiscal year budget, which was a total of $49.2 billion. Among the financial commitments for 2025–2025 were funds for projects like parks, recreation and additional mental health beds; support for programs that address domestic violence and gender-based violence; assistance for immigrants and refugees; and efforts to eradicate medical debt. 

Many of these initiatives were advocated by IRLA and community partners. 

This year, the coalition has a total of four key budget recommendations, including the improvements of county-wide services, strengthening worker protections, addressing housing instability and supporting undocumented seniors. 

According to the coalition, L.A. County should ensure that its services and programs, including housing, healthcare, education and legal assistance, are available to immigrants, particularly as immigrant communities experience increased anxiety due to Trump's second term in office. 

According to IRLA, their listening sessions, which convened members of the immigrant community, revealed that when it comes to county-wide programs, the undocumented community experiences various barriers, such as long wait times for services in languages other than English, mistrust of government agencies and digital or literacy barriers that prevent them from accessing vital programs. 

As a result, one of IRLA’s recommendations is for the county to address systemic barriers to access, such as strict eligibility criteria, complex application processes, language barriers and insufficient digital infrastructure. 

“The county would need to take a deep dive across their departments to ensure that they are making sure that all of their services are accessible to immigrants and that there's targeted outreach to this community,” Aliya Yousufi, senior policy coordinator at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told CALÒ News. 

As L.A. continues to take first place as the capital of wage theft in the nation, strengthening worker protections, especially among undocumented people was also one of this year's budget priorities. IRLA is proposing a $5 million investment for worker justice programs and initiatives. 

Wage theft, which can take the form of not receiving overtime pay, being paid less than the minimum wage and working through meal and rest breaks, is a common reality among the immigrant community. 

As stated in a study by the Migrant Justice Institute, most migrant workers are unlikely to file a wage theft claim because they fear being deported, losing their jobs or other forms of retaliation. 

Their proposal stated that the county currently lacks the personnel and programs necessary to carry out outreach, investigations and enforcement of the local minimum wage laws. “As we enter into a likely more hostile environment for immigrant workers as a result of the last national election, now more than ever is crucial for the county to bolster its labor and employment law enforcement powers.”

Tackling homelessness is also one of the coalition’s biggest priorities. 

Last year, for the first time in six years, the 2024 homeless count revealed a slight drop in the number of homeless people throughout L.A. County, including the City of Los Angeles. Despite this, Latinos made up the largest percentage of homeless individuals (43%). They were followed by Black people (31%) and whites (29%). 

”Housing is an issue countywide regardless of the demographic we're talking about, but immigrants face additional barriers because of their status to get the types of rental subsidies or programs,” Yousufi said. 

According to the California Housing Partnership, L.A. has one of the highest rates of overcrowding in the U.S., particularly affecting immigrant and low-income households. In contrast, many under-housed households face a constant risk of eviction or displacement due to rising rents or redevelopment.

One of IRLA’s recommendations is for the county to invest $20 million to expand the existing Flexible Housing Subsidy Pool (FHSP), a supportive housing rental subsidy program, to include L.A. County residents who, because of their immigration status, do not qualify for federally funded rental subsidies and are on the brink of homelessness.

The fourth budget recommendation centers around undocumented seniors. 

According to Purposeful Aging Los Angeles (PALA), L.A. County's population aged 60 and above, currently at two million, is expected to approach three million, constituting 28% of the county's total population by 2030. 

“Our immigrant seniors have worked their entire lives and often are not eligible for social security and the other traditional retirement [programs],” Yousufi told CALÓ News.

One of the coalition requests is for the county budget to help expand Breathe, an L.A. County guaranteed income pilot project that helped eligible residents and foster youth with $1,000 per month for two to three years. IRLA is requesting that the program, which was a form of financial stability support, be expanded to L.A. County residents regardless of immigration status and for older adults ages 60 and older. 

“Many times [seniors] have nothing to fall back on, at a time in their lives when they need to be taken care of and when they can no longer work to support themselves,” Yousufi said.

Rudy Espinoza, CEO of Inclusive Action, one of the organizations which are a part of IRLA, said that from now until October the coalition will continue to be a bridge between the undocumented community in L.A. and the L.A. Board of Supervisors and their departments to center immigrants in the discourse around budget allocations and policies. 

“We believe that one way to fight back against what's happening at the federal level is to make sure that our local leaders are doing what they can to protect us and more than defense. We need them to invest in our neighborhoods,” he told CALÒ News. “That's why today we are advocating that the Board of Supervisors, our elected leaders here locally, put our tax dollars in the right places, and one of those places has to be in the immigrant community.”

County officials and IRLA are expected to organize a series of public hearings on the budget proposal in the following months. The board is expected to adopt the budget before the start of the new fiscal year on July 1. Additional adjustments, however, will likely be made following that date, with a final adoption anticipated in October 2025.

Since 2021, the IRLA coalition, which includes organizations such as CHIRLA, AltaMed, St. John’s Well Child and Family Center, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, UCLA Labor Center, Consejo de Federaciones Mexicanas, and the TransLatina Coalition, among others, has worked with the L.A. County Supervisors, the entity in charge of approving, assessing and adopting the county’s annual budget, to guarantee that the county's final budget, which is made public in October, considers and includes the undocumented community.