Who’s Funding COPAL, a Group on the ‘Front Lines of Anti-ICE Operations’?

Protests over two immigration enforcement-involved shootings have highlighted the agitators organizing against federal agents on the ground in Minnesota, and the organization Comunidades Organizando el Poder y la Accíon Latina, or COPAL Education Fund, is a major player.

COPAL describes itself as a group that works “to improve the quality of life of Latine families.” It also hosts a hotline for people to call when spotting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at work. The group also set up the Immigrant Defense Network, which trains “legal observers” to watch and report ICE.

The New York Times described COPAL as being “on the front lines of anti-ICE operations.” Francisco Segovia, COPAL’s executive director, described the confrontations with ICE as like “being, maybe, in the middle of a civil war.”

Protests of immigration enforcement have continued in the Twin Cities region following recent fatal shootings by federal agents of protesters. Anti-ICE agitators also invaded a church in St. Paul to stage a protest on Jan. 18.

An ICE agent recently shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother, after her car appeared to make contact with the agent. In response, anti-ICE agitators, who chanted “Justice for Renee Good!”, invaded Cities Church in St. Paul mid-service, allegedly separating parents from their children.

Then on Saturday, U.S. Border Patrol agents shot Alex Pretti, also 37, as he filmed officers with a cellphone and appeared to intervene with law enforcement officers.

COPAL coordinates anti-ICE actions, and it has received funding from various sources, including your tax dollars.

‘Legal Observers’?

A “handbook for constitutional observers,” co-branded with the Immigrant Defense Network and COPAL, instructs trainees on how to observe and document ICE agents at work.

The handbook specifically states, “Do NOT obstruct an arrest under ANY circumstances,” and instructs observers, “Don’t run or resist” if stopped by law enforcement.

After the Department of Homeland Security surged immigration agents to the Twin Cities in December, various agitators have opposed ICE agents by disrupting their work with whistles, using their cars and bodies to prevent the arrest of illegal aliens, and more.

Segovia, COPAL’s executive director, told The New York Times that the group does not “urge” trainees to blow whistles when ICE agents are present, but also acknowledged that “we provide whistles.”

“We provide copies of those books, and that’s part of the training,” he said of the observer handbook. “The whistle is part of that.”

“For instance, if you, as a citizen, observe the presence of ICE in your neighborhood, you can call the help line and say: I have witnessed this. That information comes to us. We assess the facts, and then we activate constitutional observers,” he said.

The Left’s Dark Money Network

Some of the same “dark money” foundations that bankrolled the leftist groups that shaped policy in the administration of former President Joe Biden have also supported COPAL for causes including environmental and health care programs.

New Venture Fund, one of the leftist nonprofits that worked with Arabella Advisors and now works with Sunflower Services, gave COPAL $560,000 for “environmental programs” between 2019 and 2022.

Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit aligned with New Venture Fund, sent COPAL’s 501(c)(4) nonprofit $185,000 for “environmental programs” between 2021 and 2023.

The Tides Foundation, a left-leaning pass-through foundation, sent COPAL a combined $50,000 for “healthy individuals and communities” in 2020 and 2022.

New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, and the Tides Foundation have also contributed to the Center for American Progress, which shaped policy under Biden and called for the Department of Homeland Security to treat “immigration as an asset to be managed rather than a crime to be enforced against.”

“Each of these grants supported environmental and democracy-related work and are completely unrelated to ICE observations,” a Sixteen Thirty Fund representative told The Daily Signal. “That said, STF unequivocally supports the constitutional rights of people in this country to peacefully protest and observe the actions of law enforcement in their communities.”

The left-leaning Center for Popular Democracy gave COPAL’s 501(c)(3) $119,725 between 2023 and 2024. It gave COPAL’s 501(c)(4) $46,000 for “innovations (fight back),” “climate justice,” and “basebuilding-training” between 2021 and 2023.

COPAL, Paid by Your Tax Dollars

Americans’ tax dollars have also supported COPAL.

The Department of Labor awarded COPAL a $1 million grant beginning in January 2023 to provide “job placement, workforce training and postsecondary access,” along with “advocacy and education of worker’s rights” to help “immigrants” and to address “glaring inequities” from the COVID-19 pandemic. The grant ended June 30, 2025, after the Department of Labor had given COPAL $994,983.

The program aimed to serve 400 people, prioritizing those who face barriers to employment and those who have authorization to work in the U.S., targeting low- to moderate-income first-, second-, and third-generation immigrants “from the Latinx and African diasporas.”

A Labor Department spokesperson noted that the Biden administration approved the grant under its diversity, equity, and inclusion priorities, but the Trump administration is clawing back some of the funding.

“The money remaining is being de-obligated and returned to the Treasury,” the spokesperson told The Daily Signal on Tuesday. “Under President [Donald] Trump’s leadership, the Department of Labor has made a concerted effort to end DEI grants and programs and instead return to a merit-based system.”

According to IRS filings for Alianza Americas, a left-leaning network of pro-immigrant groups, COPAL received $238,504 as a “subrecipient” of grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2021 to 2022.

The National Foundation for the CDC gave COPAL $246,250 for “emergency response fund coronavirus” in the year ending June 2021, marked as funding from the government. The foundation, which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that works with the CDC, gave COPAL another $89,733 for “CBO support to increase vaccination coverage” in the year ending June 2024, marked as funding from the nonprofit, not the government.

“Our mission is focused on improving health,” Amy Tolchinsky, associate vice president for communications at the CDC Foundation, told The Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday. She said all funding from the CDC Foundation to COPAL was “restricted to improving the health at the community level in Minnesota.”

“The Foundation did not provide support used for other non-health activities, and the organization could not legally use our funding for any other activities,” she added.

The philanthropic arm of UCare, a Minnesota-based nonprofit health group, gave COPAL $100,000 for a “holistic program for providing support to Latino families and workers’ access to stable housing, employment/benefits, and healthcare” in 2023.

Last year, UCare announced that it would be shutting down. An inspector general report found that UCare had received $4.7 million in Medicare overpayments, in part because it reportedly billed for cancer, stroke, and sepsis even though the diseases had not been diagnosed. UCare said the findings were “fundamentally flawed” and did not consider underpayments.

Environment and Health Care?

COPAL receives funding for environmental and health care work, but these initiatives arguably focus on politics and immigration.

COPAL claims “environmental justice” as one of its “focus areas,” and it presents three goals under this heading: “base building,” which means strengthening “the power and influence of [black, Indigenous, and people of color] communities in Minnesota”; “structural change at the policy level”; and “shift the public narrative” by centering “impacted voices.” In other words, its environmental efforts appear more focused on activism and messaging than directly addressing the environment.

COPAL claims as a “core issue” “forced climate migration,” which attributes migration from Central and South America to an ostensibly manmade “climate crisis.”

COPAL presents “Health and Wellness” as another “focus area,” and presents a two-part strategy: “connecting individuals with essential resources” and “advocating for systemic changes to ensure health and wellness services are accessible to everyone.”

This article originally appeared at The Daily Signal.