City allocates $50,000 towards Immigrant Defense Fund

By Mia Cathell and Joel Lau

Mayor Martin Walsh’s office announced Saturday that the proposed 2020 fiscal year budget will allocate $50,000 to support the Greater Boston Immigrant Defense Fund, which helps fund education and legal services for Boston’s immigrant communities.

The Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation and the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute launched a two-year pilot program of the defense fund in 2017, which was supposed to end in Dec. 2019, according to the press release. However, the $50,000 dollars allocated by Walsh would “jumpstart” the defense fund’s third year by paying for counsel for approximately 30 Boston immigration cases, according to the press release. Read more in The Daily Free Press.