{"id":23661,"date":"2025-11-21T12:10:44","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T20:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/?p=23661"},"modified":"2025-11-21T12:10:54","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T20:10:54","slug":"santa-paula-city-council-approves-funding-for-immigration-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/de\/santa-paula-city-council-approves-funding-for-immigration-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Santa Paula City Council approves funding for immigration services"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was originally published by the Ventura County Star.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Santa Paula City Council unanimously voted to donate $50,000 to a community foundation for immigration services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The City Council directed the money, from a budget surplus, for the Ventura County Community Foundation to be used to help Santa Paula residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis council has the community’s back and is willing to make investments because this community is built on immigrants,\u201d said Mayor Pedro Chavez at the Nov. 19 meeting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council members voted to give through the foundation $20,000 to Poder Popular\/Lucha; $10,000 to 805 UndocuFund; $10,000 to Food Share and $10,000 to Community Action of Ventura County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of the vote, council members approved the endorsement of the community foundation\u2019s Neighbors Support Fund, which supports immigrant families. The council also supported a consideration to allow an additional amount of surplus funds to be available for future immigrant support or inclusion efforts as needs arise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recommendation came from a city council\u2019s ad hoc committee on immigration,\u00a0which was approved\u00a0on Sept. 3, and includes councilmembers Jenny Crosswhite and Gabriela Ornelas.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The purpose of the committee, prompted by recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, was to educate the community and coordinate with regional agencies on immigration issues. Other potential focuses of the committee included information gathering, limited financial support to local service providers of immigration issues and legislative advocacy,\u00a0according to the September staff report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Residents had asked the city for help, requesting clarification of the city\u2019s role in federal immigration enforcement and any potential actions,\u00a0according to the September report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other cities have also supported the Ventura County Neighbors Support Fund, which coordinates a countywide network of community partners to provide assistance to immigrant and mixed status families in August and September 2025, according to a\u00a0Nov. 19 agenda report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Camarillo and Fillmore supported\u00a0endorsing the neighbors support fund but declined to give money while Camarillo directed a $70,000 donation to Food Share.\u00a0Thousand Oaks unanimously approved\u00a0a $100,000 contribution to the neighbors support fund and Ventura unanimously approved $175,000, according to the report.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the opposite end, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Aug. 26\u00a0rejected community requests\u00a0to provide attorneys and funds for immigration legal services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seven speakers were in general support but some wanted the funds to be more focused on legal aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer Hernandez, an associate policy director of the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy, or CAUSE, said that immigrant families in Santa Paula were under attack from inside their homes to their place of employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen a bread winner or caretaker is detained or deported, families can suddenly lose access to food, education, housing and stability,\u201d she said. \u201cFamilies need access to legal help so that people who qualify for immigration relief can get it before they\u2019re targeted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The option is always open to allocate more funds at any time as long as the funds are available, Chavez said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wes Woods II covers West County for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at wesley.woodsii@vcstar.com<\/a>, 805-437-0262 or @JournoWes<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was originally published by the Ventura County Star. The Santa Paula City Council unanimously voted to donate $50,000 to a community foundation for immigration services.  The City Council…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-coverage"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vccf.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}