Mayor Lurie intends to set aside $250K to support LGBTQ+ immigrants
by KELLY WALDRON JANUARY 28, 2025 (MissionLocal.org)
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On Tuesday, San Francisco officials and advocates stood in solidarity against the Trump administration’s immigrant policies and in defense of the city’s sanctuary status, which prevents the city from assisting federal authorities with immigration enforcement.
“We value our immigrant communities. We recognize your contributions to our city. And we stand with you. You belong here,” said Mayor Daniel Lurie, who spoke briefly at the conference. He encouraged residents to visit immigrants.sf.gov to find support.
Lurie did not make any direct comment about the Trump administration. At today’s Board of Supervisors meeting, mayoral legislation setting aside $250,000 to cover legal services for LGBTQ+ immigrants is slated for introduction. The funds will ostensibly go mainly toward supporting trans immigrants who are seeking asylum.
The rally was organized by SEIU Local 87, which represents many service and janitorial workers, following an incident involving ICE agents targeting janitorial workers in a downtown office building on Friday.
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Virtually every branch of city government was represented in Tuesday’s rally, and speakers included every member of the Board of Supervisors, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, Public Defender Mano Raju, Police Chief Bill Scott and City Attorney David Chiu, many of whom are immigrants, or were born to immigrant parents. Many union representatives were also present, including SEIU president April Verrett, who flew in from Washington, D.C., to attend the event.
Chiu, whose office was one of the first to file a lawsuit against Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship, insisted that the city’s sanctuary policy is legal. “Nothing in our local law interferes or impedes federal immigration enforcement,” said Chiu.
“Our city is not encouraging our people to impede lawful immigrant immigration actions. Our policy simply says you cannot deputize local law enforcement as ICE agents,” he added.
President Trump has vowed to conduct mass deportations, among other measures targeting immigrant communities, including halting refugee admissions. Talk of ICE raids has widely circulated in the city, in some cases referring to false claims.
Local immigration nonprofits have cautioned against spreading rumours and panic. They have warned against spreading unverified reports of raids. (Here is a breakdown of what else immigrants should know under Trump.)
“We are going to make sure that our sanctuary policies and laws that have been in place for decades here in San Francisco continue. We are not going to support warrantless searches. We are not going to provide resources to separate families and to separate communities here in San Francisco,” said District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton. “And we will fight this administration consistently every single day until the message is received.”
Additional reporting by Joe Eskenazi
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KELLY WALDRON
Kelly is Irish and French and grew up in Dublin and Luxembourg. She studied Geography at McGill University and worked at a remote sensing company in Montreal, making maps and analyzing methane data, before turning to journalism. She recently graduated from the Data Journalism program at Columbia Journalism School.More by Kelly Waldron
