Bay Area leaders launch Stand Together fund for immigrant families

By Aneela Mirchandani

Overlooking the sun-dappled Coit Tower, top Bay Area officials gathered Friday morning at the San Francisco Foundation’s 14th floor downtown office to launch Stand Together Bay Area, a fund with the ambitious goal of raising $10 million to buffet the region’s immigrant families at a time when they are facing heightened risk of deportation and detention. 

“When immigrants are targeted it upends our entire community,” said San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, one of the first officials to take the podium. “Arrests, raids, and fear-based policies are not just cruel, they are un-American.”

The planned funds will go toward rent, food, and other basic needs of immigrant families who have seen their ability to work impacted, Lurie said. 

The Mission Asset Fund, a nonprofit set up almost two decades ago to create a fair financial marketplace for lower-income families of San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood was announced as the first grantee. They have now expanded their services throughout the region.

“We’ve always been very close to our clients, understanding their struggles as they improve their financial lives,” said José A. Quiñonez, the CEO of the Mission Asset Fund in a one-on-one interview with AsAmNews during the event. “But what we are seeing now is very concerning—they are dealing with the fear of being detained, of being singled out just because of what they look like. That fear is paralyzing.” That fear, Quiñonez said, had kept people home from work, from school, and thrown families into a new pandemic-style isolation. 

President Donald Trump’s name never came up for a mention during any of the speeches, though some referred to him obliquely. However, the immigration policies his administration has instituted, with frequent raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials going into immigrant-heavy communities, formed a backdrop to the morning’s proceedings. Multiple officials said they vow to retain their city’s “sanctuary” status no matter what. 

Sanctuary cities and counties institute policies that limit cooperation of local law enforcement with federal immigration authorities, limiting their reach. Proponents of such policies point to the benefit of greater trust between these communities and local police. However, the officials noted that sanctuary cities all around the U.S. have been targeted by the Trump administration with litigation and withholding of federal funds. Two Bay Area cities, San Francisco and Berkeley, appeared on the Department of Justice’s August list of jurisdictions that are to be targeted in the initial round due to Trump’s executive order, “Protecting American Communities From Criminal Aliens”.  

Mayors of San Jose and Oakland, and two Alameda County supervisors, also spoke at the event, emphasizing the rich diversity of all six counties of the region. 

“Oakland residents speak 125 languages,” said Mayor Barbara Lee of Oakland, who emphasized that having grown up in El Paso, a diverse community in Texas, had shaped who she became. 

“San Jose’s population is 40% foreign born,” said Mayor Matt Mahan of San Jose. “More than half speak a language other than English at home. That doesn’t make them less American. It shows how much they love this country.” Mahan ended his short address with a call for a renewed effort to pass a bipartisan, common sense federal immigration reform bill.

During his speech, Mahan referred to Trump obliquely, saying that the antidote to fear is not a strongman.

According to data presented at the event, almost a third of the population of the six counties involved in the Stand Together effort is foreign born. Of the six counties: Alameda, San Francisco, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Marin, and Santa Clara, the latter has the highest percentage of immigrants, at 40%. While San Mateo County has the highest proportion of undocumented immigrants, at 7.2%.

“We are working with our community to build power, not panic,” said Nikki Fortunato Bas, an Alameda County supervisor, announcing a $50,000 grant from her office to the new fund. 

Also announcing a matching grant was another Alameda County supervisor, Elisa Marquez. Both supervisors mentioned their own heritage as the children of immigrants and refugees. 

“We belong here, and we are not going anywhere,” said Marquez. “I don’t care what that clown in the White House is doing.” 

One of the officials said they would not back down in the face of the Trump administration’s policies was Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez. 

“Never,” Martinez said when asked by the AsAmNews reporter if they would end Richmond’s sanctuary status due to Trump’s directed attacks on such jurisdictions. In fact, Martinez said, as the administration had doubled down, Richmond had also doubled down—by making their sanctuary policies stronger. 

The San Francisco Foundation is one of the nation’s largest community foundations, established in 1948. With a revenue of almost $160 million in 2023, the last tax year recorded, they have supported affordable housing, transit, senior citizens, and a number of other philanthropic causes in the Bay Area. 

Fred Blackwell, CEO of the Foundation, brought the morning’s proceedings to a close by pointing out that the Stand Together effort had already yielded half a million in grants. “We plan to escalate this very quickly,” he said, pointing to the QR code in the banner behind the podium for making donations on the spot. 

As ICE was ramping up their raids on families, Quiñonez said in the interview with AsAmNews, the funds would prove invaluable in support “We want to give families some room to breathe, some space to figure out what to do next,” he said. “We hope to go beyond $10 million.”