California has restored $15 million in funding for the Children’s Holistic Immigration Representation Project (CHIRP), a program providing free legal representation and case management for unaccompanied immigrant children. The funding was announced by Assemblymember Gregg Hart in Carpinteria, alongside the Santa Barbara Immigrant Legal Defense Center (SBILDC), which had advocated for the program’s restoration after it was left out of Governor Gavin Newsom’s initial budget proposal.
Local Impact
The CHIRP program, administered by the California Department of Social Services, pairs unaccompanied immigrant children with attorneys and trauma-informed case managers as they navigate immigration proceedings. Since its launch in 2022, CHIRP has provided services to over 1,100 unaccompanied immigrant children across California, including nearly 100 children and youth in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and San Luis Obispo counties.
Advocates say that losing the program would have left many children without legal representation, forcing them to defend themselves in immigration court from removal. With the restored funding, each child in the program will be paired with both an attorney and a case manager who will remain with them throughout their case.
Original reporting: KEYT (Ventura/Santa Barbara) — read the source article.
