Gavin Newsom You Build A Safety Net For Illegal Aliens , Now Your Deficits Could Leave Some Behind

Driving a tractor for his job in the Oxnard lettuce fields doesn’t make Arturo Villanueva rich, but it’s usually been enough to make rent and support his family.

Farm labor is the only thing the 37-year-old father of five says he knows how to do well. When months of rain flooded the fields and made most of his usual work in February and March impossible, he struggled to earn enough to cover rent and allow his family “to live well.”

His family cut back on the amount and type of food they purchased.

They rarely left the house, to save money on gas. They tried to buy only what they absolutely needed.

Months later, Villanueva still isn’t working his usual hours because rainy weather delayed planting some crops by at least two months.

California set aside $95 million in state funds to help people like him who lost work or experienced hardships due to storms and floods, but Villanueva told CalMatters in June he didn’t know how to access

So many of us who work in the fields are undocumented,” he said in Spanish. “We who are the most affected receive the least. I would like there to be support for the undocumented workers — and not just those working in the fields.”

Villanueva can’t receive unemployment insurance because he’s undocumented — one of about 2.3 million Californians whose immigration status bars them from receiving a variety of social safety net benefits.

His predicament illustrates the gaps that remain in California’s safety net for undocumented immigrants despite a two-decade-long expansion of social and health services.

“So many of us who work in the fields are undocumented. We who are the most affected receive the least. I would like there to be support for the undocumented workers.” In a major reversal since the 1990s, California has opened up government programs to undocumented residents more than any other state — issuing driver’s licenses.

1.college scholarships.

2.low-income tax credits.

3.direct cash aid during the pandemic.

4.Now Medi-Cal health coverage.

5.In 2025 California will be the first state to issue food stamps to undocumented immigrants, allowing those 55 and older to qualify.

But budget realities are putting the brakes on other expansions that advocates want like a $330 million proposal to offer unemployment benefits to undocumented workers. Lucas Zucker, co-executive director of the Central Coast nonprofit CAUSE, " Note Here i add this" ( CAUSE (Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy CAUSE is a base-building organization committed to social, economic, and environmental justice for working-class and immigrant communities in California's Central Coast. We build grassroots power through community organizing, leadership development, coalition building, civic engagement, policy research, and advocacy)

which advocates for working class and immigrant workers, said it can be a difficult hurdle to extend benefits because some Americans view immigrants primarily as a source of labor. “Providing someone a social safety net when they’re not able to work is almost counterintuitive to this racist and kind of exploitative way that we’ve been viewing immigrants in this country,” Zucker said.

California has worked around limits in federal law that bar many immigrants – those with and without legal status – from social programs. That has meant building its own, state-funded programs during years of flush budget surpluses.

But this year, lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom had to plug a $31.5 billion deficit.

Newsom has backed several program expansions including public health coverage for immigrants, which will total $2.6 billion annually. But he has said he wants to avoid cutting services in deficit years, so he won’t commit to further expanding programs unless the state has funds to sustain them long-term.

The proposal for an unemployment program for workers like Villanueva failed to gain funding in the state budget for the second year in a row. A bill to create the program at a cost of $330 million a year – not counting implementation costs – has passed the Senate and awaits a hearing in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Newsom vetoed a similar measure last year. "My Add" ( The Excluded Workers Pilot Program, AB 2847, would have cost $200 million to launch and $20 million in ongoing costs — not including the costs of benefits, Newsom said in a veto message late Wednesday. The bill would have offered benefits of $300 a week for up to 20 weeks, which would have added up to $500 million. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Gov-Newsom-vetoed-a-program-to-offer-17478927.php)

“The Governor will weigh the merits of any bill that eventually reaches his desk,” Daniel Lopez, a spokesperson for Newsom, said in an email. “The state will continue to be a leader and uphold the dignity and respect of everyone who calls California home.” "My Add" ( SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom today announced the appointment of Daniel Lopez as Press Secretary in the Office of the Governor and Daisy Vieyra as Director of Communications in the Office of the First Partner. Daniel Lopez, 42, of Sacramento, has been appointed Press Secretary in the Office of the Governor. Lopez has served as the Public Information Officer in the Office of Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs since 2017. Prior to this role, he served as Chief of Staff to California State Senator Dr. Richard Pan. Lopez also worked as an Aide to former Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and served as a Press Aide to then-Lt. Governor John Garamendi. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $115,008. Lopez is a Democrat. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/01/20/governor-newsom-announces-communications-appointments/)

Critics argue further expanding services to undocumented immigrants is financially unsustainable for the state.

Assemblymember Bill Essayli, a Riverside Republican, opposes the unemployment proposal, saying the state should instead spend its funds paying off the existing unemployment system’s $20 billion loan from the federal government, to avoid raising payroll taxes on businesses. “We have to prioritize,” he said. “If you really care about getting people out of poverty, you’d help ease the burden on businesses so they can hire people and pay them living wages.”

Still, to advocates, some proposals are popular enough with the Democratic supermajority to seem inevitable.

Nourish California, a food policy advocacy group, is pushing the state to open its food stamps program to all low-income undocumented immigrants, regardless of age, said Betzabel Estudillo, director of engagement at Nourish California.

“The Legislature has been very supportive and so has the governor,” she said. “The question is about when.”California’s 1.1 million undocumented workers make up 6% of its labor force, according to UC Merced’s Community and Labor Center.

In 2019, undocumented immigrants paid an estimated $3.7 billion in state and local taxes, according to USC’s California Immigrant Data Portal. And, like the rest of the population, immigrant workers are aging, so they’ll increasingly need retirement support and health care.

In a report this year UC Merced estimated 165,000 of California’s undocumented workers were older than 55 in 2019, the highest “since Mexican mass migration began in the 1970s.” Undocumented immigrants also make up the largest share of Californians without health insurance.

Leisy Abrego, chair of Chicana/o Studies at UCLA, said California has shown it can do more to help immigrants in the absence of federal immigration policy reform.

“There’s an economic need for immigrant labor, and California, they realize that that need is being met,” Abrego said. “And advocates are wanting to treat those people meeting those needs as human beings who also need health care, who also need educational opportunities.”

California’s road to inclusion

Before she qualified for full Medi-Cal coverage in 2022, Oliva Huerta had learned to live with little or sporadic medical care for a host of illnesses, including anxiety and pain linked to diabetes, high blood pressure and a cancer battle in the 1990s. Medi-Cal was paying for emergency care only.

At 61, she’s unable to do much besides care for her four grandkids while their parents work in Los Angeles.

But when staff at Maternal and Child Health Access, a health nonprofit in Los Angeles, helped Huerta switch her emergency coverage to full coverage, she noticed an immediate difference.

She was able to select a primary care doctor at the clinic where she usually went for specialist care. She could see a doctor for non-emergency care much quicker. Recently she scheduled a mammogram and consulted with a urologist in a virtual appointment.

“It can be hard for undocumented people,” Huerta said in Spanish. “I imagine a lot of other people are benefitting like we are.”

Medi-Cal began covering undocumented children in 2018 and adults up to age 26 in 2020. Last May, older undocumented immigrants like Huerta became eligible. She is one of nearly 350,000 who have signed up for full, state-funded coverage.

Next January coverage will open to low-income immigrants of all ages; an estimated 700,000 will be eligible. The full-fledged expansion will cost $2.6 billion a year. It marks a significant turnaround from the policy debates of 1994, when California voters passed a measure barring immigrants without legal status from public services such as non-emergency health care, elementary and secondary schools and public colleges.

The measure drew mass protests, but passed with 59% of the vote. A federal judge ultimately blocked it from taking effect on constitutional grounds. But activists saw xenophobic sentiments that galvanized them to rally around immigrants’ rights.

Abrego said many Latino advocates and politicians today remain fueled by opposition to the policies of the 1990s. Read More AT ”https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2023/07/undocumented-immigrants-california/