Los Angeles Democrat city council member Eunisses Hernandez announced that her office has built a “community defense network” to respond to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. This includes providing taxpayer-funded financial assistance to illegal immigrant households if they or family members who are the primary source of income have been taken by federal immigration authorities. Nearly $1 million has already been doled out.

Speaking on a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) panel at a recent event in Los Angeles, Hernandez said that her office has distributed “half a million dollars in rental assistance” for illegal immigrant households, as well as $400,000 in food assistance, City Journal first reported. She referred to the expenditures as assistance for “low-income families.”

“I was one of the co-authors of the sanctuary ordinance,” Hernandez told the panel, explaining that since the federal government ultimately has authority over sanctuary jurisdictions, she had to come up with other ways to support illegal migrants.

“I’ve invested half a million dollars in rental assistance because a lot of our folks who have been kidnapped are the breadwinners for their families, who are vendors,” she said. “And so we don’t want to see more people fall into the eviction-to-homelessness pipeline, so we’re helping in paying back rent.”

Around 2,000 bags of food have been dispersed to illegal immigrant households in her community each month, amounting to roughly $400,000 in food assistance, Hernandez said. 

The DSA-LA panel was attended by socialist lawmakers from various cities across the country, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minnesota. The officials discussed how they leverage their public office to promote anti-ICE organizing and mutual aid, which has become a cornerstone of leftist organizing.

Hernandez went on to describe the importance of DSA during a time when her community members are being “terrorized” by the Trump White House. Additionally, she slammed the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for assisting federal law enforcement partners in quashing anti-ICE riots, claiming the agency has been violating the city’s sanctuary statute.