This is the third installment in a series examining the role of taxpayer-funded NGO Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights-Los Angeles (CHIRLA) in politics and anti-government riots in California.
In early June, President Trump was forced to send the National Guard into Los Angeles to restore calm after days of rioting and violence directed at federal immigration officers. The violence started after Angelica Salas, Executive Director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) held a press conference decrying the arrest of SEIU head David Huerta, who had assaulted ICE agents performing enforcement activities, and calling for broad demonstrations against ICE. At the podium, Salas was flanked by four LA City Council members, a CA State Assemblymember, a CA State Senator, and other elected officials, all of whom are Democrats.
Hundreds of "protesters" turned into thousands of rioters before long, complete with matching t-shirts and professionally printed signs, signaling the involvement of organizations with some degree of funding behind them.
Based upon a decade of tracking astroturfed movements in Los Angeles, RedState quickly identified CHIRLA and the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSLWEB) as two of the main non-governmental organizations fomenting the violence - and a review of CHIRLA's financials revealed that state and federal taxpayers were funding the lion's share of CHIRLA's activities.
DIVE DEEPER Taxpayer-Funded Riots: Here's What We Found When We Followed the Money in Los Angeles
While CHIRLA is the head of this particular operation, the tentacles of both the organization itself and its head, Angelica Salas, spread far and wide in California and nationally, as I previewed on Fox News at Night on June 10.
Our continued investigation has revealed several other leftist (some Soros-funded) NGOs that Salas either runs or for which she serves as a board member, the group's ties to the purportedly independent California Citizens Redistricting Commission, and CHIRLA serving as a polling place in the 2022 and 2024 general elections.
CA Racial Equity Commission
In 2023, right at the time CHIRLA’s state funding ballooned, then-CA Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon appointed Salas to the newly-formed CA Racial Equity Commission, a state government entity. What a coincidence.
Interestingly, the Commission was formed via an Executive Order from Newsom after a bill to establish the group died in the Assembly in 2022.
California Wellness Foundation
Salas is also on the board of the California Wellness Foundation, a nonprofit formed in 1992 when HealthNet, then the state’s largest insurer, converted from nonprofit to for-profit status. CA Wellness Foundation has morphed from its original mission to become a social justice and advocacy group. Here’s what was said in 1991 about how the group would be formed:
“The foundation will be governed by a board of seven trustees, who all have medical or professional health-care backgrounds. The board will disperse its funds through a grant process to community health care centers and other health-related organizations that focus on illness prevention, children's health care and prenatal care.”
And now? There are 14 board members, many of whom have zero background in medicine or professional health care, and grants to community health care centers focusing on illness prevention, children’s health care, and prenatal care are only a portion of the millions they hand out every year – so basically, another layer of funding for agitators.
Their "beliefs" are now a word salad of socialist goals.
Power CA Action
Salas is the Chair of PowerCA Action, formerly Mobilize the Immigrant Vote Action Fund. The group says they've registered and pre-registered over 100,000 voters. The group receives funding from George Soros' Open Society Foundations.
LA Alliance for a New Economy
Salas also serves on the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), which is essentially a front for organized labor. They work with IBEW Local 18, UTLA (LA teachers' union), UFCW 770, UNITE HERE Local 11, SEIU-USWW.
Remember, it was the arrest of SEIU President David Huerta for interfering in federal immigration enforcement activities that Salas and her comrades used as their excuse to call for violent uprisings in Los Angeles.
Groundswell Action Fund
Next, Salas is a "Liberation Fund Advisor" with Groundswell Action Fund, another nonprofit (with both c3 and c4 arms). Their mission:
"Groundswell Fund strengthens U.S. movements for reproductive and social justice by resourcing intersectional grassroots organizing and centering the leadership of women of color – particularly those who are Black, Indigenous, and transgender."
Groundswell has received $5,900,000 from Soros' Open Society Foundations since its inception in 2017.
Unite-LA
And then we have Unite-LA, a public/private partnership for which Salas serves as board member/board secretary. That group claims its mission is to “break through traditional silos to re-focus and re-imagine our education systems to put students first and achieve improved outcomes for Los Angeles’ underserved students.” Putting students first – what a novel concept. But what the organization does is more of the same – indoctrinating students and creating malleable Marxist foot soldiers.
Voting
In 2022 and 2024, CHIRLA participated in LA County's Flex Vote Center Program, meaning that LA County elections officials set up official voting machines at CHIRLA's headquarters for one day during early voting.
According to the LA County Registrar:
"The Flex Vote Center Program began in 2020 when the County implemented the Voting Solutions for All People (VSAP) voting system. The objective of this program is to meet hard to reach voters and bring voting to them. The communities that the Flex Vote Center program prioritizes are:
- Senior living facilities
- People experiencing homelessness
- Voters with disabilities
- Geographically Isolated voters"
None of these communities are the community CHIRLA serves, the majority of whom are illegal aliens - who shouldn't be voting anyway.
Another Handout From Karen Bass?
After RedState's story on CHIRLA's participation in anti-ICE rioting and violence (along with the great work of Laura Powell and Data Republican), multiple federal investigations were announced into CHIRLA's funding. By mid-July, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced a plan to distribute cash cards to illegal aliens in the city who were staying home from work for fear of being swept up in an immigration raid. These "Angeleno Cards," Bass claimed, would not be funded by taxpayers but instead from "philanthropic partners," and would be distributed by "immigrants rights groups such as the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles," according to the Los Angeles Times.
But Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA), who has introduced a bill that would make NGOs involved in organizing unlawful riots ineligible for federal funding or tax-exempt status, pointed out that since CHIRLA has received $34 million in taxpayer funding, taxpayer dollars are at least partially funding Angeleno Cards.
LA is now giving cash payments to illegal immigrants supposedly "impacted" by ICE operations.
— Kevin Kiley (@KevinKileyCA) July 16, 2025
The Mayor's claim that this is privately funded is false. The cash cards will be given out by the "nonprofit" CHIRLA, which received $34 million in taxpayer funding. pic.twitter.com/Q6I2Mr0rSR
CA Citizens Redistricting Commission
Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom held a rally disguised as a press conference to announce his "Election Rigging Response Act," which is actually a plan to sidestep the California Constitution and the will of the state's voters, to implement a politically-motivated gerrymander of the state's congressional district maps for use in elections in 2026, 2028, and 2030. Salas was in the audience, and the first speaker was Sara Sadhwani, a member of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, who startled watchers with her highly partisan speech. Here's a bit of what she said:
"[T]hese are extraordinary times, and extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.
"We have witnessed masked gunmen kidnapping our neighbors off the streets, and my understanding is they're outside waiting to do it again. We have seen not just the toleration of political violence, but the encouragement of it on January 6th, against nonpartisan election officials, and the deployment of the National Guard in our cities, turning our cities into police states. And if that wasn't enough, we are watching executive overreach that is no doubt making our founding fathers turn in their graves. And we have to take action. These are the hallmarks of a democracy in peril."
Sadhwani started her career in leftist activism right out of college as the federal policy director for, you guessed it, CHIRLA, and the two have stayed in touch over the years, speaking on panels together and working collaboratively on behalf of "marginalized communities." Applicants for the commission can attach up to three letters of recommendation to their application; the first letter attached to Sadhwani's application is from Salas, who stated:
"Doctor Sadhwani demonstrated a well-developed ability to synthesize and communicate complex law and policy in way that made it accessible for broader public consumption - a skill set that will enhance her role as part of the commission set out to redraw the state's districts. Also during her tenure, she led CHIRLA's advocacy efforts on the national scale, collaborating with national policy experts to review and develop legislative proposals.
"When Professor Sadhwani moved on from CHIRLA, I continued to observe her work at Asian Americans Advancing Justice, where she worked with communities across the state to mobilize a statewide network of Asian American advocates."
Sadhwani's inclusion, and her close and continued ties with groups like CHIRLA, raise major questions about how these independent redistricting commissioners are chosen and the restrictions on who can participate.
Undoubtedly, CHIRLA will be part of Gov. Newsom's efforts to negate the voice of Californians, who've voted overwhelmingly, on numerous occasions, to keep politicians out of the business of drawing districts. We will continue to monitor their activities, and whether taxpayer dollars are backing them.
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