Virginia’s two Democratic senators want the federal government to cough up $3 million for CASA Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps illegal immigrants find work.
The Washington Examiner reported that Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner requested $1.5 million in taxpayer funds to support CASA in disclosures filed on May 15.
Besides helping illegal immigrants find work, CASA advocates for looser immigration laws, supports pro-immigrant protests, and organizes pro-migration activism.
CASA is a “powerhouse organization building power and improving the quality of life in working-class Black, Latino/a/e, Afro-descendent, Indigenous, and Immigrant communities,” according to its website’s About page.
CASA maintains a program that connects employers with prospective employees in the D.C. metropolitan area regardless of their immigration status, according to press reports and the organization’s website.
According to Kaine and Warner’s funding requests, they want to help CASA expand its “capacity for workforce development, youth leadership, financial service, and support programs,” per the letters. This indicates the funds could go toward the nonprofit’s migrant work placement programs.
“Senator Warner requested funding for at least 17 separate workforce development projects this year, reflecting his long-standing support for programs that help Virginians who want to work, regardless of their backgrounds, gain the skills needed to contribute to the economy and support their families,” a spokeswoman for Warner told the Washington Examiner.
Per the Examiner, the organization’s 2025-2029 strategic plan claims that “White Christian Nationalism poses a grave threat to all of us” and that the ideology has “insinuated itself into the very fabric of the Republican Party’s leadership and permeates political discourse in the United States.”
CASA’s website contains myriad photos of activists staging protests. When opening the website, the homepage states “Demand Justic for Kilmar Abrego Garcia” with an active clock showing the number of days since the Trump administration disappeared Kilmar Abrego Garcia and a photo of him with his wife and newborn.
CASA doesn’t hide its policy agenda to aggressively “organize” and “resist” in response to Trump administration policies it views as undermining immigrant rights. Earlier this year, CASA hosted a rally to push for immigration protections in Maryland, WUSA 9 News reported.
The organization is receiving local funds too, after a “hard-fought” victory that came through relentless organizing, fierce advocacy, and unstoppable people power,” according CASA Baltimore and Central Maryland Director, Crisaly De Los Santos
A June 20 news release “celebrates” the decision by the Baltimore City Mayor and Council members to amend the City budget to include $2 million for immigrant services. The June 17 vote approved critical support allowing the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MIMA) to fund essential wraparound services, legal support, and community defense initiatives.
On May 29, 2025, CASA posted a news release that demanded Baltimore City to include funding for immigrants in its budget.
“With the attacks from the Trump administration, immigrant families need support more than ever,” De Los Santos said in the release. “We urge the City Council to amend it, so all taxpayers, including immigrants, benefit from the services their contributions make possible.”
However, Federation for American Immigration Reform media director Ira Mehlman told the Washington Examiner, that “By law, the people who are in the country illegally are barred from holding jobs in the United States.”
“You have two senators who are trying to help people who are legally barred from working in this country to work in this country,” Mehlman said.
On its “community organizing” page, CASA cites securing a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants and “challenging unjust immigration enforcement policies” as its priorities. CASA was also listed as a co-plaintiff on a recent lawsuit against the Trump administration’s effort to end birthright citizenship.
