Statement from Immigrant Defense Advocates on Governor Newsom’s Veto of SB 1194

Immigrant Defense Advocates is deeply disappointed by the Governor’s veto of SB 1194, legislation that would have established the Immigration Legal Fellowship Project in state law and preserved a proven strategy for building immigration legal capacity in rural and historically underserved regions of California.

The veto, issued late Sunday evening, underscores the Newsom administration’s failure to acknowledge grassroots-led solutions developed by rural communities and sends the message that these regions, and the immigrant communities that call them home, can be ignored without consequence or accountability. 

The Governor argues that SB 1194 is unnecessary because the 2026-27 budget already provides $7.5 million for the Immigration Legal Fellowship Project, but that funding should have strengthened the case for giving the program a durable statutory home, not become the justification for vetoing it. Rather than create a new mandate, SB 1194 would have protected a proven, community-driven program costing roughly $2.5 million a year to build lasting legal capacity in regions hit hardest by immigration enforcement and served least by existing legal infrastructure.

In his veto message Newsom points to tens of millions of dollars in existing immigration legal-services funding which only makes this veto harder to justify. If the state has invested that much, why not codify one of the few programs specifically designed to help historically underfunded regions access it? The Fellowship was that pathway: it trained attorneys, placed them in underserved communities, and helped local organizations build the capacity to qualify for long-term state funding. Citing statewide spending does not solve the problem of legal deserts. It ignores the mechanics of how those dollars actually reach communities. SB 1194 was designed to close that gap. The veto widens it. 

The Fellowship has demonstrated what targeted capacity building can accomplish. The initial program placed 19 fellows with 13 organizations in the Central Valley, Central Coast, and Inland Empire; those fellows provided more than 2,400 legal services across 39 counties. Organizations participating in the first round of the Fellowship became eligible for state removal-defense funding, helping create lasting legal-services infrastructure rather than simply funding individual cases. 

What is most concerning is that this year’s budget language governing the Fellowship strips out its explicit focus on rural and historically underserved regions. The language directs the $7.5 million appropriation toward broadly defined “sustainable, cost-effective fellowship strategies,” without preserving the geographic and capacity-building commitments that gave the program its purpose. That is not a minor drafting change. It creates a real risk that the Fellowship could be reshaped into something materially different in both design and practice, including a program that no longer prioritizes rural communities at all. It shows exactly why the Legislature needed to codify the Fellowship’s purpose in statute, so that a program built to address legal deserts and chronic underinvestment cannot be quietly redirected through budget language alone. 

For the immigrant communities and nonprofit organizations that spent years building this model, the consequence is significant. Rural and underserved regions do not simply need a one time allocation of more dollars somewhere within California’s immigration-services system. They need attorneys, experienced organizations, training, mentorship, and an intentional pathway for communities that have historically received too little legal-services investment to build permanent capacity of their own.

The Fellowship did not originate in the Governor’s Office. It was built by advocates, legal-service providers, and communities confronting immigration enforcement and legal deserts firsthand. This veto does not erase the partnerships or solutions they created. That work began before the Newsom administration and will continue long after it is gone.