Photo: iStockphoto
Despite concerns about possible budget shortfalls, Harris County hasn't slowed down its spending at all. In fact, they've gone as far as to shell out over a million dollars in order to provide legal assistance to illegal aliens facing deportation.
According to recent reporting from the Texas Scorecard, Harris County has spent $877,750 on the Immigrant Legal Services Fund. This follows the initial $2 million investment the county made in the program back in 2020.
It's worth pointing out that this is vastly different from paying for a standard public defender in a criminal legal case, primarily because you're not guaranteed a lawyer in civil matters like an immigration case.
Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies, explained that, "You have a right to a lawyer if you can afford one." He then asked, "Why are illegal aliens special? They're essentially getting a benefit that no American citizen would get."
He then pointed out that federal law bans the use of federal dollars for illegal alien legal fees, but programs like this allow fungible federal dollars to be used for exactly that. He says there are also concerns that these county dollars might not even be going to legal fees.
He asked, "Is this money actually being spent paying lawyers, or are they getting free or subsidized legal help and then keeping the rest of the money and subsidizing their other activities, including lobbying activities and what have you?"
Krikorian thinks this is something the legislature should look into addressing and says, "The state legislature has the authority to prohibit this sort of thing, just like they prohibit sanctuary policies. The question is, why haven't they done it?"
As of now, the only pushback against these programs at the county level seems to be coming from Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey, who has consistently voted against them.