IMMDEF IN THE NEWS - Santa Ana criticized for cutting funding for immigration rights program...

Immigrant rights groups hold a news conference at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Santa Ana. The Santa Ana City Council cut much of the funding to a deportation defense fund while providing a $9-million spending increase to the police department. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

In this article, Our Director of Legal Services, Joyce Noche, spoke with Los Angeles Times about the City of Santa Ana's decision to slash their deportation defense fund's budget by half.

"It seems there is going to be more enforcement and less access to counsel,” Noche said. “That’s problematic ... What you see as part of police enforcement is the criminalization of immigration. These efforts of raising the budget of the police while decreasing a budget like ours, which is already quite modest, is unfortunate, and I think it doesn’t really speak to the need for resources like ours for Santa Ana residents.”

Read the full article here.