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San Francisco isn’t ready for Trump’s mass deportation plans

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A client at Open Door Legal. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard

San Francisco has a few months to save hundreds of migrant families from deportation ahead of Donald Trump’s next term as president. But the city is already stretched to its breaking point, with a burgeoning waitlist for assistance and major funding problems.

Trump has pledged to deport huge numbers of undocumented immigrants back to their home countries. News reports speculate that Chinese men of military age could be targeted first, followed by immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela — whether they are documented or not.

But local leaders who are quick to tout San Francisco’s status as a sanctuary city have not come forward with a plan to combat the new administration’s machinations. And the apparatus for granting legal protections to migrants who qualify is overwhelmed and dysfunctional.

As of Oct. 31, the city had more than 1,200 undocumented immigrants facing deportation on a waitlist for legal services, according to the Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative. Roughly half of those on the list are children, 188 of whom have been separated from their parents. There was a backlog of 103,257 immigration cases last year in San Francisco, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

A woman is at a window, smiling as she hangs an "OPEN" sign. It's daytime, cars are visible outside, and warm lighting is present inside.
Jennifer Gordon of Open Door Legal opens the Excelsior office Thursday. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard

Even if migrants get legal representation, they face an uphill battle.

A migrant mother in San Francisco, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Standard she’s been fighting for asylum in the U.S. for eight years. 

She fled El Salvador because gangs wanted to use her disabled son as a mule to transport drugs and weaponry, she said in Spanish. When she refused, the gang members threatened to kill them both, and she escaped across the river to Guatemala, carrying her son on her back, before the Mexican Los Zetas cartel kidnapped her, forcing her to cook for them for months before releasing her.

While she was eventually able to hire an attorney, other members of her family remain unrepresented.

“My niece called me after the election, crying,” she said. “Trump isn’t playing around when he’s saying this.” 

Local migrant advocates say they’re ill-equipped to handle the demand, even before Trump gets in.

“Just to represent everyone in deportation proceedings now would cost an additional $2 million to $3 million in funding,” said Adrian Tirtanadi, executive director of the nonprofit Open Door Legal. 

Milli Atkinson, director at the Immigrant Legal Defense Program, said her group this year asked the city for an additional $2 million to hire six more attorneys and fund other needs. But it doesn’t expect to receive more funding until the spring. 

A man with a beard and mustache sits at a desk with folded arms, wearing a beige shirt and a silver watch. Papers, a pen, and sunglasses are on the desk.
Immigration attorney Maximiliano Garde says he's given up on the city's waitlist. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard

Maximiliano Garde, an attorney with La Raza Community Resource Center, said the 1,200 people on the waitlist don’t tell the whole story. 

“I haven’t put anyone on the waitlist since probably 2019,” he said, explaining that the backlog is so large that people are better off seeking representation on their own. As for the budget shortfall? “We’ve been expecting funding to go down, not up,” Garde said. 

Gabriel Medina, executive director of La Raza, said he’s hopeful that incoming Mayor Daniel Lurie will allocate more funding to immigrant advocates than his predecessor, Mayor London Breed. 

Lurie declined to respond to emailed questions.

Lurie silent on immigration 

The transition at City Hall will complicate matters.

“It’s really been challenging, because we have a new mayor, and so it’s hard to coordinate with the transition team,” Atkinson said. “We haven’t really heard from [Lurie] specifically on immigration.”

Fabiano Valerio, managing immigration director at Open Door Legal, called the mayor-elect’s  silence on the matter “disheartening.”

In a statement, Breed said she’s meeting with city agencies, including the city attorney’s office, to discuss additional protections for undocumented residents. 

Outgoing Mission Supervisor Hillary Ronen said she’s familiar with the problem.

“I am acutely aware that every nonprofit providing legal services has a waitlist a mile long,” Ronen said. She added that Trump couldn’t act unilaterally to impose his immigration policies.

“I take him at his word that he’s going to try to do what he says he’s going to try to do. Being able to pull it off is a lot more complicated,” Ronen said. “We still have a legal system, people still have rights, and we will do our part to exercise those rights in a court of law.” 

Jackie Fielder, incoming supervisor for District 9, told The Standard she would work to help immigrant advocacy organizations obtain funding.

Unlike criminal proceedings, migrants in immigration court don’t have the right to a lawyer, Atkinson said. New arrivals facing deportation are tasked with providing documentation in English that proves they faced violence in their home countries. But without legal representation, most will fail to prove their case, she said.

“We’re looking at asylum seekers who are usually fleeing countries where they didn’t have a full high school education,” Atkinson said. “So they might not be fully literate.”

People are lined up outside a building with a glass entrance. A woman talks with a man holding a backpack, while others wait. Signs are visible on the window.
Undocumented residents wait to speak to a lawyer Thursday at La Raza Community Resource Center. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard

While Trump’s biggest immigration focus is the U.S.-Mexico border, he has also stoked fears about China.

The Associated Press reported that at a campaign rally this year, Trump said more than 30,000 Chinese immigrants had arrived “in the last few months.” He said many of these immigrants were men of military age.

“And it sounds like to me, are they trying to build a little army in our country? Is that what they’re trying to do?” Trump said.

Jose Ng, immigrant rights program manager at the local nonprofit Chinese for Affirmative Action, said Trump is just stoking fears, as usual.

“Everyone who, in his eyes, is not supposed to be here, is described as an enemy,” Ng said, adding that there are plenty of immigrants who are not “military-age males.”

A young undocumented Venezuelan man was waiting Thursday afternoon outside La Raza Community Resource Center in hopes of beginning the asylum process. He said he’d been in the U.S. for a year but was seeking legal help for the first time.

“Trump is coming in strong,” he said in Spanish. “I want to be here legally.”

Donate to La Raza Community Resource Center here.

Donate to Open Door Legal here

David Sjostedt can be reached at david@sfstandard.com
Max Harrison-Caldwell can be reached at maxhc@sfstandard.com