![]() ![]() “There’s an economic need for immigrant labor, and California, they realize that that need is being met,” Abrego said. 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. 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. “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.”Īnd, like the rest of the population, immigrant workers are aging, so they’ll increasingly need retirement support and health care. “The state will continue to be a leader and uphold the dignity and respect of everyone who calls California home.”Ĭritics argue further expanding services to undocumented immigrants is financially unsustainable for the state.Īssemblymember 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. “The Governor will weigh the merits of any bill that eventually reaches his desk,” Daniel Lopez, a spokesperson for Newsom, said in an email. Newsom vetoed a similar measure last year. 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. 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. 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. ![]() Newsom has backed several program expansions including public health coverage for immigrants, which will total $2.6 billion annually. Gavin Newsom had to plug a $31.5 billion deficit. That has meant building its own, state-funded programs during years of flush budget surpluses.īut this year, lawmakers and Gov. Photo by Julie Leopo-Bermudez for CalMattersĬalifornia has worked around limits in federal law that bar many immigrants – those with and without legal status – from social programs. Arturo Villanueva, 37, a tractor driver, walks through a lettuce field in Oxnard on July 2, 2023. “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. Lucas Zucker, co-executive director of the Central Coast nonprofit CAUSE, 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. In 2025 California will be the first state to issue food stamps to undocumented immigrants, allowing those 55 and older to qualify.īut budget realities are putting the brakes on other expansions that advocates want like a $330 million proposal to offer unemployment benefits to 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, college scholarships, low-income tax credits, direct cash aid during the pandemic and now Medi-Cal health coverage. I would like there to be support for the undocumented workers.” Arturo Villanueva, oxnard farmworker We who are the most affected receive the least. “So many of us who work in the fields are undocumented. 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. 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. I would like there to be support for the undocumented workers - and not just those working in the fields.” “We who are the most affected receive the least. ![]() “So many of us who work in the fields are undocumented,” he said in Spanish. 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 it. Months later, Villanueva still isn’t working his usual hours because rainy weather delayed planting some crops by at least two months. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |