The Austin City Council is scheduled to consider contract expansions totaling $854,872 for two local nonprofits that provide legal services to immigrants facing deportation, according to city documentation. The item appears on the council’s consent agenda, a category typically used for routine measures that are voted on as a group without individual debate.
The funding would go to American Gateways and Catholic Charities of Central Texas. Austin Public Health, which administers the agreements, lists among the program’s goals helping clients obtain legal representation, navigate immigration court, secure work authorization, and pay federal filing fees. The department’s materials also cite helping clients “obtain and maintain public benefits” as a success metric for the program.
The proposal comes days after an ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officer shot a Venezuelan national in the Austin area on Sunday, as reported by Breitbart Texas. DHS officials said the man had entered the United States during the Biden administration and had a final order of removal from an immigration judge.
Program History
Austin has funded immigrant legal defense services since 2019. According to a social media post from a group calling itself “Austin Justice,” the city has directed roughly $3.4 million to American Gateways since the program began. The new contract authorizations would raise the combined ceiling across the city’s legal defense contracts to as high as $6.7 million over multiple years.
The services funded include direct legal representation for immigrants in detained and non-detained removal proceedings, workshops that coach unrepresented immigrants on filing motions and meeting court deadlines, assistance obtaining Employment Authorization Documents, and payment of immigration filing fees.
Legal Questions Elsewhere in Texas
Similar programs in other Texas counties have faced legal challenges. In 2020, Harris County created an Immigrant Legal Services Fund that used county tax revenue and federal relief dollars to fund legal defense for detained immigrants in the Houston area. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Harris County, arguing the spending violated the Gift Clause of the Texas Constitution, which restricts the use of public funds to benefit private individuals, and that counties lack statutory authority to spend local tax dollars defending people against federal civil immigration enforcement.
The Supreme Court of Texas subsequently issued an order freezing Harris County’s ability to disburse further funds from that program, citing constitutional questions about whether local governments can lawfully spend taxpayer money to interfere with federal immigration enforcement.
It is not clear whether Austin’s program has faced or will face a similar legal challenge.
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