ALBANY – At a public hearing Monday on the state's unmet civil legal services needs, the Cuomo administration said it was working to expand a legal defense fund to help immigrants fight against deportation.

Sandi Toll, the first assistant counsel to the governor, told Chief Judge Janet DiFiore at the hearing that the $10 million investment from the state to the Liberty Defense Project, which helps nonprofits providing legal assistance to immigrants, was a “starting point.”

At the hearing held at the Court of Appeals in Albany, DiFiore asked Toll if there were plans to have recurrent funding for the Liberty Defense Project, or if there were plans to further expand the fund, which was unveiled in March amid President Donald Trump's immigration agenda.