Since the reelection of Donald Trump, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria has come under fire for his decision earlier this year to defund an office that supported the city’s immigrant communities.
Advocates, including some who spent years lobbying the city to create the Office of Immigrant Affairs, believe the decision sends the wrong message to people impacted by Trump’s calls for mass deportation.
“It’s decisions like this that say, ‘this community does not want to protect and support immigrants and refugees,’” said Kyra Greene, Executive Director of the Center on Policy Initiatives (CPI).
The decision to defund the office, which had a budget of about $500,000, came in June when the city faced a $172 million budget deficit. Greene called the decision “shortsighted,” especially during the presidential election year.
“We’ve known for a long time that there was a strong chance that former President Trump would be reelected,” she said. “In that context, it seemed particularly important in this budget cycle to think about what that meant.”
Mayor Gloria declined an interview request. His office issued a statement saying the County of San Diego is “lead on all immigration issues in the region.” A spokesperson also said programs previously offered by the Office of Immigrant Affairs are available through local nonprofits and legal aid organizations.
An immigrant affairs office was first envisioned in 2019 when Gloria’s predecessor Kevin Faulconer launched the Welcoming San Diego Initiative — an ambitious plan to expand services to immigrants during the first Trump administration.
At the time several cities with large immigrant populations, including Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle, had already established similar offices. San Diego’s office, which included a manager and several staffers, was fully established by Gloria in 2022.
Among other things, the office administered workforce development for the immigrant population, held “know-your-rights” workshops and created a language access plan to make city programs and services more accessible.
“Immigrants are an important part of our community, but often feel disconnected or unsupported by their city government,” Gloria said in a 2022 press release announcing the new office.
Advocates who worked on the Welcoming San Diego Initiative called it, “a big win,” said Erin Tsurumoto Grassi, the associate director at Alliance San Diego.
But the victory was short-lived — the office was gone within two years.
“It’s hard to really put into words when you have worked on something for so long,” Tsurumoto Grassi said. “They abandoned something that could have really been great had they continued to build it out.”
Last year, San Diego County allocated $6 million it originally received from the federal government as part of the COVID-19 relief package to open a temporary migrant shelter in the city
At the time, the United States Border Patrol was releasing dozens of migrants and asylum seekers into the streets of San Diego on a daily basis.
That shelter closed in February due to lack of funding. After the closure, a network of nonprofits and mutual aid organizations responded to the street releases.
It was then that advocates on the ground warned some of the migrants could end up homeless without support from local governments. And this is what happened, said Adrianna Jasso, a program coordinator with the American Friends Service Committee.
There were multiple homeless encampments populated entirely by migrant families in Barrio Logan, including one place that had more than 120 people in July, Jasso said.
“Mainly women and children in situations where it even impacted local neighborhood schools,” she said.
Although critical of Gloria’s decisions regarding immigrants during his first term, Jasso hopes his second term brings about a new approach.
“This could be an opportunity to be a more humane voice when it comes to embracing and understanding the entire population of San Diego,” she said.
