Exclusive: FBI’s Patel says bureau investigating funding behind anti-ICE riots in LA

As parts of Los Angeles burn under the fury of riots, there are burning questions in Washington about who instigated the protests against immigration enforcement operations and whether any funding is coming from foreign sources.

FBI Director Kash Patel told Just the News the bureau is investigating the money trail behind those organizing and promoting the demonstrations spreading across the country.

"The FBI is investigating any and all monetary connections responsible for these riots," Patel said in a statement sent late Monday to Just the News.

After initial—and largely peaceful—demonstrations in response to several immigration raids in Los Angeles late last week, the anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protests escalated over the weekend to include more than 1,000 rioters filmed assaulting immigration officers, burning self-driving vehicles, looting, temporarily closing down at least one city highway, and throwing concrete rocks at law enforcement officers.

The images of violent rioters waving Mexican and other foreign flags as cars burned in the background circulated the country and drew attention from the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress. 

Month-old footage of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum threatening to “mobilize” over legislative proposals to tax remittances to Mexico resurfaced in light of the protests, raising concerns about whether rhetoric from south of the border could be inflaming tensions. Sheinbaum responded to the violence on Monday, condemning it but promising Mexican government commitment to all Mexicans, “regardless of immigration status.” 

Biggs: "They hate this country"

“[You] got the outside influences…the Mexican flags and all these people and the Mexican president…Sheinbaum,” Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Monday. “[All] these people…they hate this country, and they want to change this country, and it'll turn, basically, the country into a Third World hellhole.” 

Biggs said that he has “no doubt” that foreign influence is driving the protests, at least in part. 

“Not a doubt in my mind. Not a doubt in my mind,” he said. “I mean, even if you just take the statements of President Sheinbaum of Mexico, tacitly, she's basically encouraging this,” Biggs continued.

Rep. Mark Harris, R-N.C., said he fears some of the protesters are being paid, and it is essential for Congress to follow that money trail.

"Well, I do think it's important for Congress to raise those questions and do that, look into it and find out what we can," he told Just the News. "I also think the Justice Department will play an important role in trying to see these kind of things through, because, again, these ICE agents are there simply carrying out their responsibility."

Former FBI Executive Assistant Director Chris Piehota told Just the News that the FBI likely began looking immediately into how these violent protests were sparked. 

Law enforcement likely focusing on sources of funding

“[What] they will do is they'll start looking for those connections between the financial and logistical networks that these people depend on to create these, I would say planned disturbances or augmented disturbances,” Piehota told the John Solomon Reports podcast. 

“So you're going to see them start going after some of those, you know, supporting functions. So you can cut down on some of the people who, basically, they have become professional rabble-rousers and troublemakers. They get financed around the around the country to show up at different events and cause problems,” he continued.

“So yeah, I think you're gonna see the FBI make a much more aggressive push into some of those areas to cut off their funding and their logistics,” Piehota added. 

One group involved with the protests last week that eventually evolved into riots over the weekend is the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) — a Marxist group with reported ties to the Chinese Communist Party. That group has also helped organize the anti-Israel protests recently ravaging college campuses. 

PSL said that the demonstrators have “taken a courageous stand against Trump’s reign of terror targeting immigrant families” and that those “taking to the streets” are being falsely labeled as “rioters.” 

The larger network

“But the people are not deterred – in Los Angeles and across the country, protest is continuing with even more determination,” the group wrote in a post to Instagram. “This could be a turning point where the entire working class unites to push back Trump’s efforts to shred our basic rights and dignity.” 

The PSL is part of a larger network of protest and organizing groups which have connections to the Singham Network, a collective of nonprofits, fiscal sponsors, and alternative news sources tied to pro-CCP businessman Neville Roy Singham, Just the News previously reported. 

Singham lives in Shanghai and is identified as a “conduit for CCP geopolitical influence,” according to a report from the Network Contagion Research Institute—a research institute that monitors "cyber-social threats.” The group found that PSL was involved in the Shut It Down for Palestine (SID4P) protest movement, started by the New York-based The People’s Forum—a group funded by Singham. 

According to a profile of Singham by The Free Press, the financier’s wealth came from his software consulting company, Thoughtworks, which he sold in 2017 to Apax Partners for $785 million. The New York Post reported that Singham poured the fortune he made off the sale of his software company into at least a dozen nonprofits, including the communist People’s Forum in Midtown Manhattan.

Singham has a radical Marxist past that eventually grew into an admiration for China and its socialist system. Singham married Jodie Evans, the co-founder of the radical left-wing group Code Pink, in 2017. The antiwar group has become increasingly pro-China in recent years. Singham now lives in Shanghai, China, where he backs or promotes several pro-China news outlets, such as the India-based website Newsclick, The Free Press found. 

Taxpayer funding under Biden and Newsom

But, some funding may be coming from much closer to home. State financial documents show the progressive activist group at the center of the initial anti-ICE protests in California received a large portion of its budget revenue in recent years from taxpayers, through California and federal government grants, Just the News reported on Monday. 

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) staged one of the first Los Angeles rallies last week protesting the ICE raids in the city, in part sparked by the arrest of the Service Employees International Union president who was accused of obstructing immigration warrants. 

CHIRLA rallied alongside other member groups of the L.A. Rapid Response Network, according to a public post on its Instagram account. The organization was joined by the Service Employees International Union and the LA teacher’s union, among other immigrant groups. 

“To our immigrant community: we see you, we hear you, and we will NOT stop fighting for you. We say NO deportations. NO to mass detentions. Families belong together. We belong here!” CHIRLA said in the social media post. 

The group previously told The New York Post that it was not involved in the violent riots that took place over the weekend. A spokesperson said the group “organized a press event on Thursday” to protest the initial ICE raids and has “been sending legal observers to immigration courts and detention centers on Friday, Saturday and today as part of the LA Rapid Response Network.” 

“We have not participated, coordinated, or been part of the protests being registered in Los Angeles other than the press conference and rally cited above,” CHIRLA told The New York Post in a statement.

CHIRLA did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News.

State of California financial documents show that CHIRLA received a significant portion of its recent operating budgets from both state and federal government funding for immigration services. 

“During the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023, the Organization received government contract revenue of nearly $34 million, including $32.5 million (or 96% of stated revenue) from the State of California to provide immigration-related services,” the group’s most recent filings show. A similar percentage of revenue from the State of California was recorded in the prior year’s statements. 

The Biden administration also awarded two “Citizenship and Integration” grants to the organization in 2023 for a total of $193,030. The federal grants were ongoing until earlier this year, when the Trump administration terminated them. The group was slated to receive a total of $450,000 before the grant ended. 

You can read the consolidated financial statements below:

Trump ends funding, braces for more protests

“Under [President] Trump and [Secretary Kristi Noem] we terminated this in March,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin posted to X on Sunday. 

These concerns come as the country gears up for planned protests across the United States to mark the June 14 military parade ordered by President Trump in Washington, D.C., to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. The event is planned to include a procession of military vehicles, thousands of uniformed soldiers, and flyovers. 

Counterprotests called the “Day of Defiance,” being organized by an activist alliance called “No Kings,” against what they say is President Trump’s authoritarianism, are set to coincide with the parade. 

Those planned demonstrations may mix with anti-ICE protests, creating a potentially dangerous brew. No Kings approvingly cited the violent demonstrations in Los Angeles as a powerful example of citizens standing up to the Trump administration and urged Americans to join in by attending their protests. 

“President Trump wants you to believe that the people of Los Angeles are destroying their own communities. That’s false. Here’s the truth: people are peacefully and lawfully protesting the Administration’s abuses of power and the abduction of their neighbors by ICE,” No Kings said in a statement. 

“The No Kings mobilizations on June 14 were already planned as a peaceful stand against authoritarian overreach and the gross abuse of power this Administration has shown. Now, this military escalation only confirms what we’ve known: this government wants to rule by force, not serve the people,” the group continued. “From major cities to small towns, we’ll rise together and say: we reject political violence. We reject fear as governance. We reject the myth that only some deserve freedom.”

No Kings urged Americans to join one of the “more than 1,800” rallies across the country to “Make it clear: we don’t do kings in this country.”