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.”