Steve Hilton, a Republican candidate for California governor, stood outside a taxpayer-funded immigrant rights office in Santa Ana on Wednesday and made a specific, documented accusation: California taxpayers are paying for illegal immigrants to campaign for Xavier Becerra.
The organization at the center of it is the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), which has received $72 million in public funding over three years, endorsed Becerra for governor, and, according to its own internal organizing materials, deploys canvassers who include people in the country illegally.
🚨 NEW FROM CAL DOGE: California taxpayer $$$ funding illegal immigrants to campaign for Xavier Becerra, in violation of federal law.
— Steve Hilton (@SteveHiltonx) May 6, 2026
Taxpayer-funded non-profit CHIRLA endorsed Becerra April 13th. Our investigation reveals payments to illegal immigrants for campaign activity: pic.twitter.com/ziM3P4pT6C
Hilton said:
“...California taxpayers are funding an organization that uses illegal immigrants to campaign for Javier Becerra. This is not just unacceptable and unethical and outrageous, a theft of taxpayer money for political purposes. It is illegal.”
Of course, we've covered CHIRLA extensively here at RedState; our Managing Editor, Jennifer Van Laar, documented their role in fomenting the anti-ICE violence that went on for weeks in Los Angeles last summer, using taxpayer dollars to do so.
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles (CHIRLA) funds a network of anti-ICE doxxing groups similar to the Signal chats in Minneapolis, trains violent agitators, and has played a key role in anti-ICE violence in California - all funded by taxpayers. Thank you… pic.twitter.com/hXt6ZC3q0r
— Jennifer Van Laar (@jenvanlaar) April 23, 2026
We also learned that the organization was behind the so-called "Stop Nick Shirley Act" introduced in the California Assembly last month.
Read More:
Taxpayer-Funded Riots: Here's What We Found When We Followed the Money in Los Angeles
Federal law prohibits employers from knowingly hiring or compensating individuals not authorized to work in the United States. CHIRLA's own organizing materials describe election canvassers "ranging in status from undocumented to lawful permanent residents," making "4-7 pre-election contacts per voter." Those aren't Hilton's words. They're CHIRLA's.
Then there's the endorsement. CHIRLA Action Fund formally backed Becerra for governor on Apr. 13, and its president was explicit about what that meant.
“We are here today to make our endorsement public and to announce that we will work hard to get him elected on June 2, 2026, for the primary and then on to November,” CHIRLA Action Fund President Angelica Salas said.
CHIRLA and affiliated entities received approximately $72 million in taxpayer funding over the last three years, $25.6 million in 2024 alone. That money flows into an organization that also runs what its own documents call a "civic pipeline": a structured program moving individuals from DACA renewals and naturalization applications into voter registration and full political mobilization, with the explicit goal of building a new Democrat voter base.
CalDOGE Report: pic.twitter.com/LVexeLvD2C
— Steve Hilton (@SteveHiltonx) May 6, 2026
CHIRLA disputes the allegations, arguing its taxpayer funding is legally walled off from its C4 political arm's activity. "We follow the law to the letter; our critics should take the time to understand it," Salas said in a statement. Yet after Wednesday night's Los Angeles mayoral debate, Salas was quick to tell the NBC Los Angeles reporter asking her thoughts on the debate that she was attending in her capacity as president of CHIRLA Action Fund, and not as CHIRLA's Executive Director. It's hard to wall off activity when one person leads both organizations.
CHIRLA - Executive Director Angelica Salas at Mayor of Los Angeles Debate.
— Doña de Commiefornia (@LaDonaDelValle) May 7, 2026
Of course they endorse Karen Bass. pic.twitter.com/GP7dQ75mwS
This May 5 Instagram post from CHIRLA Action Fund identifies Salas as the organization's president.
Whether illegal immigrants were compensated as canvassers (something federal law prohibits regardless of which entity cuts the check) is a question neither CHIRLA nor Becerra's campaign has directly answered. Hilton and CalDOGE have referred the matter to state and federal authorities to find out.
Becerra, the former Biden HHS secretary who, along with Democrat Tom Steyer and Republican Steve Hilton, is leading in polls ahead of the June 2 primary, has stayed silent, with no response to the canvassing allegations, none to the organizing materials, none to the $72 million in public funding flowing to a group openly working to elect him.
For years, California Republicans have warned that Sacramento's nonprofit sector, flush with public money and aligned with Democrat electoral goals, functions as a government-funded campaign operation that voters never approved and can't vote out. Outside a CHIRLA office in Orange County on Wednesday, Hilton put a name, a dollar figure, and a paper trail to it. What Sacramento Democrats do next will tell voters everything they need to know about whether anyone in power actually answers to them.
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