Your Tax Dollars Funded the LA Riots and the Group That Did It Just Filed Its Tax Return
Los Angeles burned last June while rioters threw objects at police, blocked streets, and vandalized federal property.
Now we know a group that helped spark those riots collected $8.7 million from American taxpayers in the same year.
And Congress did exactly nothing about it.
CHIRLA Collected $80 Million in Government Grants and Then Sparked the LA Riots
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights – CHIRLA – just filed its latest tax return, and the numbers are staggering.
Taxpayer grants made up 35% of the group's total revenue for fiscal year 2024.
That's your money. $8,726,683 of it.
Handed to an organization that built an anti-ICE surveillance network and deployed activists on foot to track federal agents in real time.
In January 2025, CHIRLA partnered with SEIU and other groups to form the Los Angeles Rapid Response Network – a coalition that sends text alerts to illegal immigrants the moment ICE moves in their direction.
SEIU union boss David Huerta was "activated" through that network on June 6, 2025, the day ICE launched an enforcement surge in Los Angeles.
Federal agents arrested Huerta after he allegedly blocked their vehicles.
That arrest triggered the rally. The rally triggered the riots.
The tab ran somewhere between $32 million and $1 billion in damages, according to federal and local estimates.
And that Rapid Response Network? Still running. Every time ICE moves in Los Angeles, the text alerts go out.
Congress Sent CHIRLA Three Letters. The Anti-ICE Group Ignored All of Them.
Jim Jordan's House Judiciary Committee sent CHIRLA a letter demanding financial records and internal communications.
Josh Hawley sent his own letter threatening criminal referral.
The House Homeland Security Committee sent a third.
CHIRLA ignored all of them.
The House Judiciary Committee never threatened a subpoena.
Hawley's office has gone silent.
The FBI's Los Angeles field office declined to comment on its own announced probe.
The IRS wouldn't respond to press inquiries.
Meanwhile, CHIRLA executive director Angelica Salas issued a defiant statement: "We will not be intimidated for standing with immigrant communities and documenting the inhumane manner that our community is being targeted with the assault by the raids, the unconstitutional and illegal arrests, detentions, and the assault on our First Amendment rights."
She's right that nothing is coming.
This is what happens when Washington substitutes letters for action.
Biden Gave CHIRLA Over $80 Million in Government Grants. Here's What Taxpayers Got in Return.
CHIRLA didn't become a $25 million operation overnight.
The Obama administration's Board of Immigration Appeals embedded this group into the U.S. immigration system in 2011, tasking it with filing DACA applications and providing deportation defense services.
Biden poured gasoline on it.
Since Biden opened the border in January 2021, CHIRLA collected more than $80.6 million in government grants – confirmed by the group's own tax filings.
That's a sustained, deliberate financial partnership between Democrat administrations and an organization whose stated mission includes abolishing ICE.
California kept the money flowing even after Trump cut federal funding in March 2025.
State grants still land in CHIRLA's accounts. Lawyers funded by that money are still fighting deportations in court today.
Courts have upheld Trump's termination of the federal grants – both at the district and appellate level.
So the courts are doing their part. Trump is doing his part.
Congress is writing letters.
There's a pattern here that conservatives lived through once before. When ACORN – the left-wing community organizing group – was caught on video advising what appeared to be illegal schemes in 2009, Congress moved fast.
The Senate voted 83-7 to strip it of funding. The House followed 345-75.
ACORN filed for bankruptcy within a year.
That was Congress doing its job.
Over 200 NGOs got letters from Congress about their role in the Biden border disaster, and the accountability scorecard is essentially empty.
Not one subpoena.
Not one criminal referral that went anywhere.
Not one organization forced to return a dollar of taxpayer money they used to organize street campaigns against federal law enforcement.
The lesson every radical NGO in America just learned is simple: Congress barks, and then it goes back to sleep.
CHIRLA collected more than $80 million in taxpayer money over four years and used that infrastructure to help ignite the worst riots California had seen in decades.
If congressional investigations that produce no consequences are the price for that, it was a bargain.
Sources:
- Hudson Crozier, "Anti-ICE Group Received Millions From Taxpayers in a Year — Here's What We Got in Return," Daily Caller News Foundation, April 28, 2026.
- "Jordan, McClintock, and Biggs Open Inquiry into Activist Groups Funding LA Riots with Taxpayer Grants," House Judiciary Committee Republicans, June 24, 2025.
- "Chairmen Green, Brecheen Launch Probe into 200+ NGOs Over Their Use of Taxpayer Dollars During the Biden-Harris Border Crisis," House Homeland Security Committee, June 11, 2025.
- Tyler Olson, "Sen. Josh Hawley Expands Probe into Groups Allegedly Funding Anti-ICE Riots, Threatens Subpoenas," Fox News, June 12, 2025.
- "California Taxpayers Have Been Funding the Protests Against Them and the Amount Is Shocking," Discern Report, February 21, 2026.
