Attorney General Bonta Volunteers with AmeriCorps Members in San Francisco, Highlights Programs Protected through Litigation Against the Trump Administration

SAN FRANCISCO - California Attorney General Rob Bonta today joined Reading Partners to highlight the important work that AmeriCorps servicemembers do in California communities. Reading Partners is an AmeriCorps supported program that helps elementary school students strengthen their reading skills through one-on-one, research-based tutoring. AmeriCorps supports national and state community service programs by funding and placing volunteers in local and national organizations that address critical community needs. In 2024, more than 6,000 California AmeriCorps members served over 1,200 locations, including schools, food banks, homeless shelters, health clinics, youth centers, veterans' facilities, and other nonprofit and faith-based organizations.

Earlier this year, the Trump Administration attempted to dismantle this longstanding service-based agency and cut critical funding. As part of the Attorney General's work to hold this Administration accountable when it breaks the law and harms Californians, Attorney General Bonta filed a lawsuit and secured relief - ensuring AmeriCorps servicemembers could continue to support their communities this holiday season and all year.

"When we invest in AmeriCorps, we invest in people, potential, and progress," said Attorney General Rob Bonta. "Today I got to see first-hand how AmeriCorps volunteers are lifting up the next generation of students through programs like Reading Partners. Amid all of the challenges over this past year, these volunteers have remained undaunted in their dedication to serving their communities. My office will continue to stand up for them and fight to protect AmeriCorps and its spirit of giving this holiday season."

"Today we highlight the need to stand up - to the Trump Administration for our values and for each other. We are standing firm to defend AmeriCorps in California and together we're demonstrating the power of service to strengthen our communities," said California Chief Service Officer and GO-Serve Director Josh Fryday. "I'm grateful to Attorney General Rob Bonta for standing with us to protect service, and to Reading Partners, who continue to strengthen communities across the Bay Area."

"AmeriCorps has been a successful service program for decades in large part because it has consistently enjoyed broad bipartisan support. At Reading Partners, our focus is on supporting students and communities, and one of the primary ways we are able to do that at scale is through the service of hundreds of AmeriCorps members each year in California and across the country," said Hong Thach, Interim Executive Director, Reading Partners SF Bay Area. "In addition to building trusting relationships with students in our dedicated reading centers, AmeriCorps members also collaborate closely with our school partners, principals, and teachers to ensure our program is part of an integrated approach to learning. Reading Partners has been a proud AmeriCorps partner organization since 2010 because, quite simply, the program works. Without AmeriCorps, Reading Partners would not be able to operate at the scale required to meet community needs."

PROTECTING AMERICORPS: MEANINGFUL IMPACTS TO CA COMMUNITIES

AmeriCorps is an independent federal agency tasked with engaging Americans in meaningful community-based service that directly addresses the country's educational, public safety, and environmental needs. Organizations rely on support from AmeriCorps to recruit, place, and supervise AmeriCorps members nationwide. In 2024, AmeriCorps invested more than $133 million in federal funding to California to support cost-effective community solutions, working with local partners like Reading Partners to help communities tackle their toughest challenges.

In April 2025, Attorney General Bonta co-led a multistate coalition of Attorneys General in suing and securing an early court order blocking the Trump Administration from unlawfully cutting AmeriCorps funding and dismantling the agency. Attorney General Bonta and his multistate partners then expanded the lawsuit to challenge the withholding of an additional $184 million in funding, which the Trump Administration ultimately agreed to release rather than continue to defend its illegal actions in court.

LITIGATION YIELDING RESULTS: SECURING RELIEF FOR CALIFORNIANS

Attorney General Bonta has taken the Trump Administration to court 48 times in 45 weeks to protect California from the harms of this Administrations's illegal actions. These lawsuits involve protecting constitutional rights, upholding the rule of law, stopping the dismantling of the federal government, preserving programs, services and funding the Californians rely on, and more. This litigation has been broadly successful, delivering real results for California communities through both early relief and permanent injunctions and stipulated agreements that fully resolve the cases in California's favor. Examples include:

• Defending Constitutional Rights: Attorney General Bonta has vigorously defended the constitutional rights of California in courts, securing multiple court orders protecting birthright citizenship and blocking the Trump Administration's unlawful attempt restrict the right to vote.
• Supporting Public Safety and Victims of Crime: Attorney General Bonta has secured commitments from U.S. DOJ, following two multistate lawsuits, to drop illegal conditions on grant funding for organizations that support victims of crime. These fund go toward critical wraparound services for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, human trafficking, and elder abuse.
• Protecting California's Schools: Attorney General Bonta secured full and permanent relief for California schools in his lawsuit challenging the Trump Administration's withholding of over $900 million in funding at the start of the school year. He also protect another $200 million in previously obligated and awarded funding for the academic recovery of students following the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Blocking the Illegal Conditioning of Transportation and Homeland Security Funding: Attorney General Bonta secured permanent injunctions blocking the Trump Administration's effort to unlawfully impose immigration enforcement requirements on billions of dollars in annual transportation and homeland security grants. These grants help California maintain our roads, highways, railways, airways, and bridges and prepare for, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks and other catastrophes.
• Protecting Californians' Data: Attorney General Bonta has secured court orders preventing the Trump Administration from allowing ICE to comb through the private data of Medicaid recipients or from bullying states into turning over the data of SNAP recipients to aid in its efforts to build a mass surveillance machine.

You can find more on the California Department of Justice's work to hold the federal government accountable here: https://oag.ca.gov/federal-accountability.