The funding, sought by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, was left out of a budget agreement released Thursday night by the Assembly and Senate. The money would allow the DMV to connect with the State-to-State system and its SPEX platform, a nationwide database operated by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.

The system is designed to help states determine whether a driver already holds a license or identification card elsewhere. California officials say participation is necessary to comply with the federal Real ID Act of 2005, which sets standards for identification accepted at airports and other federal facilities.

But immigrant rights advocates and some lawmakers are alarmed by the type of information that would be shared. The system includes the last five digits of a driver’s Social Security number. For drivers without one, it uses a placeholder, such as “99999,” which opponents say could make it easy to identify people who do not have Social Security numbers.

California has allowed residents to obtain standard driver’s licenses regardless of immigration status since 2015 under Assembly Bill 60, a 2014 law. More than 1 million immigrant license holders in California do not have federal authorization to live in the United States, according to prior reporting cited by advocates.

Those advocates fear that once California driver information is entered into the national system, officials in other states could pass along details about suspected undocumented immigrants to federal agencies such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Border Patrol.

In response to questions about the Legislature’s budget proposal, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson urged people living in the country without lawful status to leave the United States.

The Senate released its own budget plan Tuesday evening without the DMV funding. Lawmakers face a June 15 deadline to approve a state budget, though negotiations with Gov. Gavin Newsom can continue through June 30 on budget-related details.

Excluding the $55 million does not permanently block the DMV’s plan. The governor and Legislature could restore the money during negotiations, or lawmakers could approve it later through a follow-up budget bill. But advocates say the delay could prevent the DMV from receiving the funds by July 1, when the department had planned to begin sending data.

Jessie Schmitte, a state policy manager with Alliance San Diego, said the proposal drew widespread attention only after media coverage earlier this year. Alliance San Diego, a human rights organization, has been monitoring the issue and helped organize opposition to the plan. Nearly 200 organizations signed a coalition letter opposing the DMV data-sharing proposal, and demonstrators protested at a San Francisco DMV office earlier this month.

“A lot of organizations weren’t aware of these conversations until, thankfully, the CalMatters article came out and brought air into this conversation for everybody who has not had a seat at the table,” Schmitte said. “If you were really serious about protecting Californians and doubling down on privacy concerns, you wouldn’t be running away from these conversations.”

The DMV also faces a legal hurdle beyond the budget. State law generally bars the department from sharing Social Security numbers collected through the licensing process. The DMV’s own budget request noted that additional legislation would be needed before California could provide that information to the national association.

The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, whose board is made up of motor vehicle officials from across the country, has said its database cannot be searched broadly and requires specific information, such as a person’s name and date of birth.

A spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said discussions over the DMV funding are continuing. Staff for two other lawmakers did not respond to requests for information about the negotiations.

Newsom’s office referred questions to the Department of Finance. H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the department, said talks “have been underway and are continuing.”

Andrea Guerrero, founding executive director of Alliance San Diego, said the state is running out of time to reach a satisfactory compromise before the DMV’s planned launch date.

“It’s hard to imagine what kind of change could be made while we’re standing at the end of a plank,” Guerrero said.

Original source: CalMatters

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They call themselves the Godmothers of the Disappeared.

The interfaith group has continued meeting long after the large demonstrations around downtown Los Angeles faded from daily view. Its members say their weekly vigil is meant to honor those taken into immigration custody, support their families and offer a quieter form of public witness amid the continuing fallout from federal immigration enforcement across Southern California.

Katharine Guerrero, one of the participants, told the group that Tongva Chicana activist Gloria Arellanes had taught her the meaning of standing in a circle — a symbol, she said, of unity rather than division. She also noted the layered history surrounding the civic center area, including its significance to the Tongva people, unmarked Indigenous graves near a nearby church, the former site of a slavery auction and the location across the freeway where 18 Chinese men and boys were lynched in 1871.

For the Godmothers, the federal building has become another site tied to state power and racial injustice, this time through the detention and deportation of immigrants.

The group describes its work as a companion to rapid-response networks, legal aid efforts and street protests organized in immigrant communities. Its members advocate for detainees to be released or returned, oppose federal tactics they say divide communities and call on immigration officers, law enforcement and military personnel to reconsider their roles.

When large protests erupted around the federal building last June, demonstrators filled nearby streets to oppose immigration arrests, raids and the deployment of military forces. Guerrero was there as a volunteer medical aide, assisting people injured by rubber bullets.

As confrontations escalated among sheriff’s deputies, police, federal agents and protesters, Guerrero said the Godmothers sought to create a different kind of space — one centered on prayer, conversation and presence.

“With godmothers, there’s a disarmament that allows for conversation,” Guerrero said. “We forget we belong to one another and in those moments, you get the opportunity to remember.”

Guerrero said she saw the vigil affect some National Guard members and military personnel stationed near federal property last summer, describing small moments of visible attention during public prayers.

“We are called to be in solidarity, even if that means the person suited up,” she said. “That’s the hard work.”

The group’s name is inspired by Argentina’s Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the women who gathered in Buenos Aires during the country’s military dictatorship in the late 1970s to demand answers about children and relatives who had been disappeared by security forces.

The Rev. Alexia Salvatierra said the Argentine mothers not only prayed for their missing children, but also for the soldiers serving the regime.

“They also gave flowers to the soldiers and they won,” Salvatierra said. “They changed the regime and were able to liberate their sons and daughters from prison.”

In Los Angeles, the Godmothers have paired their vigils with direct assistance. Members say they have raised about $22,000 to help more than 100 families affected by immigration detention, including families who lost primary wage earners. Some of the money has gone toward bail. Members said they have encountered mothers with children outside detention facilities, crying and unsure how they could afford legal help.

During the weekly vigil, participants walk together in song to two entrances of the federal complex where detainees are held. At one stop, near a driveway leading to an underground loading dock, Rosa Manriquez read a short biography of Rutilio Grande, the Salvadoran priest whose killing helped move Archbishop Oscar Romero to speak out against state repression. Both men were later killed by a death squad.

Manriquez then led a call-and-response prayer and a litany naming figures such as Emma Goldman, James Baldwin and Octavia Butler — people the group holds up as advocates, writers and organizers who pushed for a more just society.

Susan Garcia also spoke about a recent visit to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, the private detention facility in the Mojave Desert where many immigrants detained in Southern California are sent.

The group then continued toward a rear loading dock near the Metropolitan Detention Center, singing the Black spiritual “Down by the Riverside.” Richard Barragan offered a prayer through a microphone connected to a small rolling speaker, intended to be heard by detainees and federal personnel alike.

The Rev. Heidi Worthen Gamble led the final song, “Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed on Freedom).” Afterward, participants approached the black chain-link fence installed last summer and placed white daisies near the entrance.

Manriquez said the flowers are meant for detainees to see, but also as an offering to the federal agents and military members working there.

“They don’t have to do this,” she said.

For the Godmothers of the Disappeared, the ritual is both remembrance and a call to action. While the urgent work of protecting immigrant communities continues, members say the vigils are also meant to help Southern Californians imagine what comes after the raids, detentions and separations — and to begin the difficult work of building something more just.

Original source: CalMatters

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WASHINGTON (AP) — White House and Senate negotiators dug in Sunday laboring to reach a U.S. border security deal that would unlock President Joe Biden’s request for billions of dollars worth of military aid for Ukraine and other national security needs before senators leave town for the holiday recess.

The Biden administration, which is becoming more deeply involved in the talks, is facing pressure from all sides over any deal. Negotiators had hoped to reach a framework by the weekend, but that’s highly unlikely. Republican leaders signaled that without bill text, an upcoming procedural would likely fail.

The talks come as Donald Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner in 2024, delivered alarming anti-immigrant remarks about “blood” purity over the weekend, echoing Nazi slogans of World War II to cheers at a political rally.

“They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” Trump said about the record numbers of immigrants coming to the U.S. without immediate legal status.

Speaking in the early-voting state of New Hampshire, Trump, drew on words similar to Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kempf” as the former U.S. president berated Biden’s team over the flow of migrants. “All over the world they’re pouring into our country,” Trump said.

Throughout the weekend, senators and top Biden officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, have been working intently behind closed doors at the Capitol to strike a border deal, which Republicans in Congress are demanding in exchange for any help for Ukraine, Israel and other national security needs. Mayorkas arrived for more talks late Sunday afternoon.

“One step at a time,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., as he and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona independent, headed into talks.

The senators have insisted they are making progress, as they narrow on proposals to limit migrants from entering at the U.S.-Mexico border, but other influential lawmakers are doubtful any deal can be approved by Congress before year’s end.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said senators don’t want to be “jammed” by a last-minute compromise reached by negotiators.

“We’re not anywhere close to a deal,” Graham, whose staff has joined the talks, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Graham predicted the deliberations will go into next year. He was among 15 Republican senators who wrote to GOP leadership urging them to wait until the House returns Jan. 8 to discuss the issue.

Top GOP negotiator Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell also signaled in their own letter Sunday that talks still had a ways to go, and that this week’s planned procedural vote would likely fail.

The Biden administration faces an increasingly difficult political situation as global migration is on a historic rise, and many migrants are fleeing persecution or leaving war-torn countries for the United States, with smugglers capitalizing on the situation.

The president is being berated daily by Republicans, led by Trump, as border crossings have risen to levels that make even some in Biden’s own Democratic Party concerned.

But the Biden administration, in considering revival of Trump-like policies, is drawing outrage from Democrats and immigrant advocates who say the ideas would gut the U.S. asylum system and spark fears of deportations from immigrants already living in the U.S.

The White House’s failure to fully engage Latino lawmakers in the talks until recently, or ensure a seat at the negotiating table, has led to a near revolt from leaders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

“It’s unacceptable,” said Rep, Nanette Barragan, D-Calif., chair of the Hispanic Caucus, on social media. “We represent border districts & immigrant communities that will be severely impacted by extreme changes to border policy.”

Progressives in Congress are also warning the Biden administration off any severe policies that would bar immigrants a legal path to enter the country. “No backroom deal on the border without the involvement of the House, the House Hispanic Caucus, Latino senators is going to pass,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., on Fox News.

White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, along with Mayorkas, heard from leading Latino lawmakers during a conference call with the Hispanic Caucus on Saturday afternoon.

The senators and the White House appear to be focused on ways to limit the numbers of migrants who are eligible for asylum at the border, primarily by toughening the requirements to qualify for their cases to go forward.

The talks have also focused removing some migrants who have already been living in the U.S. without full legal status, and on ways to temporarily close the U.S.-Mexico border to some crossings if they hit a certain metric, or threshold. Arrests of migrants have topped 10,000 on some days.

There has also been discussion about limiting existing programs that have allowed groups of arrivals from certain countries to temporarily enter the U.S. while they await proceedings about their claims. Decades ago, those programs welcomed Vietnamese arrivals and others, and have since been opened to Ukrainians, Afghans and a group that includes Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and Haitians.

Meanwhile, Biden’s massive $110 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other security needs is hanging in the balance.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a dramatic, if disappointing, visit to Washington last week to plead with Congress and the White House for access to U.S. weaponry as his country fights against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

Many, but not all, Republicans have soured on helping Ukraine fight Russia, taking their cues from Trump. The former president praised Putin, quoting the Russian leader during Saturday’s rally while slamming the multiple investigations against him as politically motivated — including the federal indictment against Trump for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election that resulted in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States said Sunday she believes in “Christmas miracles” and won’t give up hope.

Of Biden’s package, some $61 billion would go toward Ukraine, about half of the money for the U.S. Defense Department to buy and replenish tanks, artillery and other weaponry sent to the war effort.

“All the eyes are on Congress now,” the envoy, Oksana Markarova, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“We can just only pray and hope that there will be resolve there, and that the deal that they will be able to reach will allow the fast decisions also on the support to Ukraine,” she said.

The House already left for the holiday recess, but Republican Speaker Mike Johnson is being kept aware of the negotiations in the Senate.

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gov.ca.gov | Contributed

As other states cruelly target migrants and vilify immigration, Governor Gavin Newsom today announced the signing of legislation that will support immigrants, advance equity, and expand opportunity.

What Does This Mean?

• Undocumented Californians will be able to obtain a State ID, a critical step for inclusion and meaningful participation in our communities and economy.

• Street vendors can more easily get local health permits, supporting better economic inclusion and opportunity.

• Immigrant students will have improved access to in-state tuition at public colleges and universities, and to ESL courses at community colleges. Additionally, immigrant student borrowers will have more options to finance their college educations.

• Provides low-income Californians, regardless of their immigration status, eligibility for legal assistance in civil matters affecting basic human needs.

• Access to community health workers and promotores who can facilitate and provide culturally and linguistically responsive care.

• Cal/OSHA postings will be provided in various languages to protect workers and support safe workplaces.

• An alternate plea scheme will be created for defendants charged with drug offenses, which mitigates particular harm for noncitizen Californians.

“California is expanding opportunity for everyone, regardless of immigration status,” said Governor Newsom. “We’re a state of refuge – a majority-minority state, where 27 percent of us are immigrants. That’s why I’m proud to announce the signing of today’s bills to further support our immigrant community, which makes our state stronger every single day.”

Last month, Governor Newsom signed SB 836 by Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), prohibiting the disclosure of a person’s immigration status in open court in a criminal case by any party unless approved by the judge.

For full text of the bills, visit: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Attorneys hoping to save an Obama-era program that prevents the deportation of thousands of people brought into the U.S. as children told a federal appeals court Wednesday that ending the program would cruelly disrupt the lives of thousands who have grown up to become tax-paying, productive drivers of the U.S. economy.

An attorney for the state of Texas, leading an effort to end the Deferred Action for Childhood arrivals program, argued that DACA recipients have cost the state hundreds of millions in health care and other costs.

The dueling views at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans were exchanged as more than 100 DACA supporters held signs, beat drums and chanted outside of the courthouse. They called for preservation of the program that protects more than 600,000 people from deportation, and a path to citizenship for immigrants.

“I am undocumented, and I will speak out today,” said Woojung “Diana” Park, 22, of New York. She said she was brought to the U.S. as a 1-year-old from South Korea. DACA, she said, “is the bare minimum that the U.S. government has offered immigrant communities after decades of fighting for basic human rights.”

A federal judge in Texas last year declared DACA illegal — although he agreed to leave the program intact for those already benefiting from it while his order is appealed.

The U.S. Justice Department defended the program, allied with the state of New Jersey, advocacy organizations such as the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund and a coalition of dozens of powerful corporations — including Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft — which argue that DACA recipients are “employees, consumers and job creators.”

Texas, joined by eight other Republican-leaning states, argues that DACA was enacted without going through proper legal and administrative procedures, including public notice and comment periods. Additionally, the states argue that they are harmed financially by allowing immigrants to remain in the country illegally.

DACA proponents argued that the program falls within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s power to prioritize enforcement. “DHS has limited resources,” argued Brian Boynton of the Justice Department. “It’s unable to remove 11 million people in the country. It has to decide who it’s going to target first.”

In court and in briefs, DACA backers have argued that Texas diminished its claims of financial injury by waiting six years to challenge the program. They also said the state ignores evidence that DACA recipients decrease Texas’ costs because many of them hold jobs with health insurance benefits, own homes and pay property taxes that support schools.

In addition, they claimed that Texas hasn’t shown DACA recipients would leave the state if the program were struck down. That point was met with skepticism by Judge James Ho, who noted that in a survey included with New Jersey’s legal arguments, more than 20% of DACA recipients said they were likely to leave if the program were abolished.

Boynton argued that the respondents’ answers were merely speculative and supporters of the program, in briefs, have questioned the methodology of the survey. But Ho again questioned whether the responses should be dismissed.

“This is a question about, literally, your entire life,” Ho told Boynton. “This is a pretty profound question to get wrong.”

Judd Stone, arguing for the state of Texas, said the state has shown that it expends millions of dollars on DACA recipients and that the end of the program would lead to some of those who receive that money leaving the state. “There is no evidence showing that either of those numbers are zero,” Stone said.

In court briefs and in news conferences in New Orleans and South Carolina on Wednesday, DACA supporters pressed the argument that ending DACA would have devastating consequences for immigrants who have only known the United States as their home.

“I’m a father of a 10-year-old, so getting DACA rescinded would put me in limbo of not knowing if I’m going to take my son to his next football game,” Yahel Flores, a DACA recipient and the Carolinas state director of the American Business Immigration Coalition, told reporters on a Zoom call.

In a court brief, DACA supporters said program beneficiaries “are parents of over a quarter-million U.S. citizens, and 70% of DACA recipients have an immediate family member who is a U.S. citizen.”

DACA has faced numerous court challenges since then-President Barack Obama created it by executive order in 2012. Former President Donald Trump moved to end the program. But a U.S. Supreme Court decision determined that he had not done it properly, bringing it back to life and allowing for new applications. That was followed by the Texas-led lawsuit.

Assigned to hear arguments at the 5th Circuit were Chief Judge Priscilla Richman, an appointee of President George W. Bush; and two Trump appointees, Ho and Judge Kurt Engelhardt.

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PHOENIX (AP) — With anti-immigrant rhetoric bubbling over in the leadup to this year’s critical midterm elections, about 1 in 3 U.S. adults believes an effort is underway to replace U.S.-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gains.

About 3 in 10 also worry that more immigration is causing U.S.-born Americans to lose their economic, political and cultural influence, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to fear a loss of influence because of immigration, 36% to 27%.

Those views mirror swelling anti-immigrant sentiment espoused on social media and cable TV, with conservative commentators like Tucker Carlson exploiting fears that new arrivals could undermine the native-born population.

In their most extreme manifestation, those increasingly public views in the U.S. and Europe tap into a decades-old conspiracy theory known as the “great replacement,” a false claim that native-born populations are being overrun by nonwhite immigrants who are eroding, and eventually will erase, their culture and values. The once-taboo term became the mantra of one losing conservative candidate in the recent French presidential election.

“I very much believe that the Democrats — from Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, all the way down — want to get the illegal immigrants in here and give them voting rights immediately,” said Sally Gansz, 80. Actually, only U.S. citizens can vote in state and federal elections, and attaining citizenship typically takes years.

A white Republican, Gansz has lived her whole life in Trinidad, Colorado, where about half of the population of 8,300 identifies as Hispanic, most with roots going back centuries to the region’s Spanish settlers.

“Isn’t it obvious that I watch Fox?” quipped Gansz, who said she watches the conservative channel almost daily, including the top-rated Fox News Channel program “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” a major proponent of those ideas.

“Demographic change is the key to the Democratic Party’s political ambitions,” Carlson said on the show last year. “In order to win and maintain power, Democrats plan to change the population of the country.”

Those views aren’t held by a majority of Americans — in fact, two-thirds feel the country’s diverse population makes the U.S. stronger, and far more favor than oppose a path to legal status for immigrants brought into the U.S. illegally as children. But the deep anxieties expressed by some Americans help explain how the issue energizes those opposed to immigration.

“I don’t feel like immigration really affects me or that it undermines American values,” said Daniel Valdes, 43, a registered Democrat who works in finance for an aeronautical firm on Florida’s Space Coast. “I’m pretty indifferent about it all.”

Valdes’ maternal grandparents came to the U.S. from Mexico, and he said he has “tons” of relatives in the border city of El Paso, Texas. He has Puerto Rican roots on his father’s side.

While Republicans worry more than Democrats about immigration, the most intense anxiety was among people with the greatest tendency for conspiratorial thinking. That’s defined as those most likely to agree with a series of statements, like much of people’s lives is “being controlled by plots hatched in secret places” and “big events like wars, recessions, and the outcomes of elections are controlled by small groups of people who are working in secret against the rest of us.”

In all, 17% in the poll believe both that native-born Americans are losing influence because of the growing population of immigrants and that a group of people in the country is trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants who agree with their political views. That number rises to 42% among the quarter of Americans most likely to embrace other conspiracy theories.

Alex Hoxeng, 37, a white Republican from Midland, Texas, said he found those most extreme versions of the immigration conspiracies “a bit far-fetched” but does believe immigration could lessen the influence of U.S.-born Americans.

“I feel like if we are flooded with immigrants coming illegally, it can dilute our culture,” Hoxeng said.

Teresa Covarrubias, 62, rejects the idea that immigrants are undermining the values or culture of U.S.-born Americans or that they are being brought in to shore up the Democratic voter base. She is registered to vote but is not aligned with any party.

“Most of the immigrants I have seen have a good work ethic, they pay taxes and have a strong sense of family,” said Covarrubias, a second grade teacher in Los Angeles whose four grandparents came to the U.S. from Mexico. “They help our country.”

Republican leaders, including border governors Doug Ducey of Arizona and Greg Abbott of Texas — who is running for reelection this year — have increasingly decried what they call an “invasion,” with conservative politicians traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border to pose for photos alongside former President Donald Trump’s border wall.

Vulnerable Democratic senators up for election this year in Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire and Nevada have joined many Republicans in calling on the Biden administration to wait on lifting the coronavirus-era public health rule known as Title 42 that denies migrants a chance to seek asylum. They fear it could draw more immigrants to the border than officials can handle.

U.S. authorities stopped migrants more than 221,000 times at the Mexican border in March, a 22-year high, creating a fraught political landscape for Democrats as the Biden administration prepares to lift Title 42 authority May 23. The pandemic powers have been used to expel migrants more than 1.8 million times since it was invoked in March 2020 on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

Newly arrived immigrants are barred from voting in federal elections because they aren’t citizens, and gaining citizenship is an arduous process that can take a decade or more — if they are successful. In most cases, they must first obtain permanent residency, then wait five more years before they can apply for citizenship.

Investigations have failed to turn up evidence of widespread voting by people who aren’t eligible, including by non-citizens. For example, a Georgia audit of its voter rolls completed this year found fewer than 2,000 instances of non-citizens attempting to register and vote over the last 25 years, none of which succeeded.

Blake Masters, a candidate for Senate in Arizona, is among the Republicans running for office this year who have played into anxieties about a changing population.

“What the left really wants to do is change the demographics of this country,” he said in a video recorded in October. “They want to do that so they can consolidate power so they can never lose another election.”

___

The AP-NORC poll of 4,173 adults was conducted Dec. 1-23, 2021, using a combined sample of interviews from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population, and interviews from opt-in online panels. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 1.96 percentage points. The AmeriSpeak panel is recruited randomly using address-based sampling methods, and respondents later were interviewed online or by phone.

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Backed by soaring revenues amid the pandemic, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday proposed a budget that would pay for the health care of all the state’s low-income residents living in the country illegally, while cutting taxes for businesses and halting a scheduled increase in the gas tax later this summer.

California taxpayers already pay for the health care of young adults and people 50 and over living in the country illegally, provided they meet certain income requirements. Now, Newsom wants California to become the first state to cover all adults who are living in the country illegally, a move that would eventually cost $2.2 billion per year.

“We’re doing something that no other state has done,” Newsom said.

Newsom said his $286.4 billion budget proposal tackles five of the state’s biggest problems — what his administration called “existential threats” — including the surging coronavirus pandemic; wildfires and drought worsened by global warming; homelessness; income inequality including the lack of health insurance for some immigrants; and public safety, including combatting a recent flurry of coordinated smash-and-grab robberies.

The “existential” label is usually applied to climate change and the pandemic, Newsom acknowledged, but he said homelessness, the rising cost of living and public safety are “understandably top of mind in terms of people’s concerns.”

The governor said his budget includes a $45.7 billion surplus, which is larger than previous estimates because his administration uses a different definition of what counts as surplus.

The proposed $2.2 billion program to aid immigrants in the country illegally would not take effect until January 2024 to include “all low-income Californians, regardless of immigration status,” Newsom said.

The state has made great strides in reducing its uninsured population in recent years, but the largest single group left behind under the state’s Medicaid program are low-income residents in the country illegally.

The state began covering immigrants 26 and under in 2019, and those 50 and older last year.

The governor’s budget address kicks off months of haggling with his fellow Democrats who control the state Legislature, talks that will intensify when Newsom presents an updated spending proposal in May.

Some progressive legislative Democrats last week proposed creating in California the nation’s first universal health care system, backed by steep tax hikes that would have to be approved by voters. But Newsom touted his own more incremental approach.

Among steps to ease the state’s rising costs, he proposed pausing a scheduled increase to the state’s gas tax on July 1. It was one of 10 tax incentives he touted. He also proposed $45 million to promote tourism; $40 million to waive filing fees for new businesses; and $26 million to provide technical assistance to new businesses

Newsom also has pledged to spend $300 million on boosting law enforcement efforts to combat retail theft and another $2.7 billion to spend on things like coronavirus testing and hospital staffing.

He additionally on Monday proposed spending $648 million to back wildland firefighters and buy more helicopters and bulldozers, plus another $1.2 billion on top of the current budget year’s $1.5 billion for forest management.

Another $750 million would go to drought relief, on top of the current budget year’s $5.2 billion water package.

Also on the environmental front, he pledged to keep reducing California’s reliance on fossil fuels.

“On the surface, there are certainly things to like in this proposal; funding for clean water, wildfire prevention and homelessness are all worthy goals,” Assembly Republican Leader Marie Waldron said in a statement. “But look at the details and you’ll see that much of this spending isn’t going to transformative projects to improve the lives of Californians, but rather to clean up from years of Democratic mismanagement.”

Sen. Jim Nielsen, ranking Republican on the Senate’s budget committee, said the state should devote its budget surplus to building reservoirs, increasing forest management to alleviate wildfires and supporting law enforcement.

To confront the state’s seemingly intractable homelessness problem, Newsom proposed spending $2 billion for mental health services, housing, and clearing homeless encampments. That’s on top of last year’s $12 billion package. The combination would create a projected 55,000 new housing units and treatment slots.

To help with the ever-growing cost of living in California, Newsom proposed “doubling down” on the state’s existing plan to provide free universal pre-kindergarten; adding thousands of child care slots and boosting before-, after- and summer school programs.

He also proposed continued aid to small businesses hit hard by the pandemic by waiving fees and providing hundreds of millions in grants and tax breaks.

Newsom’s massive projected budget and surplus brings the state a long way from the gloom of 2020, when Newsom and state lawmakers cut spending, raised taxes and pulled money from the state’s savings accounts to cover what they feared would be a pandemic-fueled $54 billion deficit.

That deficit never happened. Instead, state revenues soared like never before. In September, collections from the state’s three largest taxes — personal income, sales and corporation — were 40% higher than September 2020 and nearly 60% higher than September 2019, before the pandemic hit, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

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We’ll call her Maya, an immigrant who came to California from her native India soon after she had an arranged marriage with a well-paid techie in the Silicon Valley. That was three years ago.

Right from day one, Maya’s husband began exercising total control over what she ate, wore and whom she socialized with. She had cousins in the Bay Area, but she wasn’t allowed to invite them over. He told her that he was doing all that only because he cared deeply about her, that he needed to protect her. The smitten woman believed him. After all, most of what he told her were things she wanted to hear.

But when the 28-year-old woman found out that he was monitoring her every move via a location tracker he had installed on her cell phone, she realized that that was not how a loving husband should behave. She confronted him. From that point on things between them got worse, but it would be a whole year before she left him. 

In the case of Mexican immigrant Blanca Gomez, the emotional struggles she endured in her marriage were of a different nature. The 56-year-old woman was forced to spend all the money she made from cleaning houses to take care of the household expenses for herself, her husband and their two sons — from groceries to utilities to the rent for their four–bedroom house in Pinole, Calif. Gomez never got up the nerve to ask her husband, who was a manager of an auto repair garage in the East Bay, why he didn’t share the expenses, especially since his mother and brother were sharing the home with them. 

But what rankled her even more was that her husband had banned her from speaking English with their two U.S.-born sons or with friends who visited them. Since she migrated to the U.S. as a young woman, she had longed to learn to speak English so she could better her job prospects.  “Stick to Spanish,” he would tell her sternly. “Your accent and grammar are embarrassing.”

Behavioral experts would describe the conduct Maya and Gomez experienced at the hands of their intimate partners as domestic abuse. It includes behaviors that are “often wrapped in a package of caring,” as Lisa Aronson Fontes, a psychologist, author and activist, puts it. Because there are no broken bones or black eyes, frequently the victim is even unaware that she — it is usually women who experience this — is being abused. Often, she is gaslighted by the perpetrator, leaving her confused and isolated. 

But now California has a law on the books that gives some protection to people who experience this form of domestic abuse. Until now, domestic violence laws in California failed to capture “the full range of behavior that constitutes domestic violence,” Fontes said.  The new law broadens the range of abusive behaviors contained in the laws. It could substantially change the way domestic abuse is handled by the courts and by the police.

Isolating someone from her network, like Maya was, is an example of this form of domestic abuse. Such abuse often leads to physical violence. Research has shown that men who kill their female partners dominate them first, Fontes said.

In 2004, Tasmania in Australia criminalized this form of behavior, and in England and Wales abusers found guilty of this form of behavior could face up to five years in prison. The U.S. still has a lot of catching up to do.

With this grant from the Center for Health Journalism’s Domestic Violence Impact Reporting Fund, I plan to write three, possibly four, stories centered around the new law. These stories will include interviews with law officials and those in and outside the criminal justice system. It will have data that evaluates how effective the law has been thus far. Most importantly, it will have the voices of those who have survived the abuse.

I would also like to explore how immigration laws intersect this law.

I would like to find out what steps California is taking to educate the police, advocates, judges and the general public to ensure the law can be effectively enforced.

Through these stories, my hope is for women to know that they no longer have to stay in an abusive situation simply because their partner didn’t break their bones or cause them other physical harm. 

These stories will not only appear in ethnic media outlets, but the San Francisco Public Press has agreed to team up with me to give my stories greater exposure.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that thousands of people living in the U.S. for humanitarian reasons are ineligible to apply to become permanent residents.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court that federal immigration law prohibits people who entered the country illegally and now have Temporary Protected Status from seeking “green cards” to remain in the country permanently.

The designation applies to people who come from countries ravaged by war or disaster. It protects them from deportation and allows them to work legally. There are 400,000 people from 12 countries with TPS status.

The outcome in a case involving a couple from El Salvador who have been in the U.S. since the 1990s turned on whether people who entered the country illegally and were given humanitarian protections were ever “admitted” into the United States under immigration law.

Kagan wrote that they were not. “The TPS program gives foreign nationals nonimmigrant status, but it does not admit them. So the conferral of TPS does not make an unlawful entrant…eligible” for a green card, she wrote.

The House of Representatives already has passed legislation that would make it possible for TPS recipients to become permanent residents, Kagan noted. The bill faces uncertain prospects in the Senate.

President Joe Biden has said he supports the change in the law. But his administration, like the Trump administration, argued that current immigration law doesn’t permit people who entered the country illegally to apply for permanent residency.

On the other side were immigrant groups that argued many people who came to the U.S. for humanitarian reasons have lived in the country for many years, given birth to American citizens and put down roots in the U.S.

Federal courts around the country had come to conflicting decisions about whether the grant of TPS status was, by itself, enough to enable an immigrant to try to obtain permanent residency.

Former President Donald Trump tried to cancel the program for many immigrants, stoking fear they could be sent back to their homelands where they haven’t lived in many years.

“All of these families that are established in the United States and have lived in our communities for decades faced a very real threat,” said Lisa Koop, a lawyer with the National Immigrant Justice Center who also teaches at Notre Dame’s law school.

In 2001, the U.S. gave Salvadoran migrants legal protection to remain in the U.S. after a series of earthquakes in their home country.

People from 11 other countries are similarly protected. They are: Haiti, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

Monday’s decision does not affect immigrants with TPS who initially entered the U.S. legally and then, say, overstayed their visa, Kagan noted. Because those people were legally admitted to the country and later were given humanitarian protections, they can seek to become permanent residents.

Also on Monday, the court:

— Declined to hear a challenge to the requirement that only men register for the draft when they turn 18.

— Agreed to hear a case in which the Biden administration wants to halt a lawsuit over FBI surveillance of Muslims in California because it could reveal “state secrets.”

— Turned away an appeal questioning the federal Food and Drug Administration’s authority to regulate electronic cigarettes.

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I never thought, for one second in my life, eating hot pot could count as someone’s wish that could not be fulfilled. It’s one of the easiest of Chinese foods — all you need is a pot, a portable stove, and whatever you want to cook in that pot. 

Yongyu Situ lived in an SRO (single-room occupancy) hotel room in San Francisco with her family of four for the past five years. As I got to know her, she told me several times that she and her husband Fang wanted to have hot pot so badly for the past year — but they did not dare.

The family of three generations lives in a 100-square-foot room, which is only big enough for one bunk bed. Grandma Zhen sleeps in the upper bunk, Situ and her son Xiao Lin in the lower bunk. Fang could only sleep on the floor, surrounded by furniture, kitchenware, clothing, and debris. His bed needs to be put away during the day to give the family space to eat, work, rest and entertain if they have company.

My 2020 National Fellowship project (translated here in English) looked at how Chinese residents living in cramped SRO housing in San Francisco’s Chinatown are faring during the pandemic.

SROs were initially created as transitional housing. But due to soaring housing prices in San Francisco and the affordable housing crisis, SROs are used as permanent residences for many families. In the past, those who lived in SROs could move to other places after saving for a few years; now it’s just not possible with the cost of rent in the city.

The Situ family has to share a bathroom and kitchen with about 30 other residents on the same floor. For the past year of COVID-19 and shelter-at-home, Situ worried every day about the family’s health and safety. “My mom cooks for the family when there’s no one in the kitchen. Because it’s not possible to keep 6-feet distance in the kitchen,” Situ said. 

When I look at the crowded 100-square-foot room stuffed with closets, shelves, tables, and a bunk bed, the life of an SRO family during the pandemic has never been so real to me. Xiao Lin, Situ’s 7-year-old son, was playing with his Legos at a small table when I first visited them. Grandma Zhen was sitting at the dinner table looking at her cellphone. 

I now understand why Situ and her family cannot have hot pot: the space in the room was not big enough to have the family sitting around a dinner table. Outside their window is a wall, the family cannot see the sky from inside, and the window has long been blocked by a large wardrobe. Without a window or a vent, it’s not safe nor comfortable for the family to cook hot pot inside their single room.

During this past year, hot pot became Situ’s obsession and impossible dream. “My husband really wants to eat hot pot,” she said. “It will be so good if our family has a place to hot pot, but we don’t have that space. I don’t dare to do it without ventilation either.”

Many San Franciscans have heard about the hardships faced by these residents. But few outside the community have visited those SRO buildings and talked with those who lived there for years. 

“Why do they have to stay in there? Why not moving to a cheaper state?” Those are the kinds of questions frequently asked by my readers and friends. Many of the residents in San Francisco Chinatown SROs rely on community services, language services, and job opportunities. It’s not easy for anyone, whether wealthy or poor, to leave their comfort zone and risk the uncertainty of moving elsewhere. For the poor, it’s much harder. 

Many San Franciscans have heard about the hardships faced by these residents. But few outside the community have visited those SRO buildings and talked with those who lived there for years. 

It was heartbreaking to learn that young Xiao Lin has been stuck in the room for a whole year. When he had to attend online classes, he could see that his classmates have couches, study rooms, study desks, and their own bedrooms. He would want that as well, but he sort of understands the family’s plight.

It was near the holiday season when I talked with Situ, when all the children were expecting gifts. Situ said, “Living in a place like this, my son dares not make requests.” She knew that her Xiao Lin wanted a room of his own, but the 7-year-old has learned to turn his desire into hopes for the future, when he moves into a bigger home. 

Situ told me that Xiao Lin would often ask if he can buy some toys when they went out in the past. Situ used to tell Xiao Lin their home was not big enough, and Xiao Lin would say, “Then I will buy it when I have a bigger place.”

“All that I can say to him was tomorrow will be better,” Situ said sadly. 

She is a family-oriented person and enjoys the time with her family. “If it were not for living in this place, this year could be a gift for my family to stay together. We don’t have that very often,” said Situ. “But the room is too small. Living here every day, it’s embarrassing to even change your clothes. It has caused a lot of problems. Sometimes I felt that there might be some mental issues.”

“I did not expect that I’ll live in this place when I came from China,” Situ said. 

For a long time, the deepest desire of most SRO residents has been to move out, and a year of sheltering at home has made such wishes and needs even more urgent. “SRO families need exits into affordable family housing. This is more true now than ever,” Malcolm Yeung, executive director of Chinatown Community Development Center, told me. “The city isn’t prioritizing this and it’s a disservice to our community.”

It was heartbreaking to learn that young Xiao Lin has been stuck in the room for a whole year. When he had to attend online classes, he could see that his classmates have couches, study rooms, study desks, and their own bedrooms.

Talking with the SRO residents was not easy, especially when they know you are going to publish a story. I visited several buildings and talked with many other residents before I connected with Situ. Some of the residents were reluctant to talk about their hardships and some did not understand what was going on outside. After a few months of talking to different people from the community, Amy Dai, a family coordinator of the SRO Families United Collaborative, connected me with Situ. 

Before I went to talk with Situ, I talked with mentor Margie Freivogel and community engagement expert Ashley Alvarado about possible interview questions and ice-breakers. I found it useful to ask questions that seem unrelated to story at hand. The question “What do you think we/the city/you can do better if we were going back to the start of the pandemic?” tended to get a more detailed response than: “What do you need the city/community to do?”

The hot pot detail in the story touched many people’s hearts after I published it because that’s something we all share in Chinese culture. Everyone in the community understands how common a hot pot should be; they realized the lives of SRO residents were even harder than they could imagine.

The second time I went to Situ’s room, the family seems more relaxed. Grandma Zhen was singing a song when I arrived. A song called “The Shepherd of Keketuohai” was her favorite, and she sang it again to me. The melody was sad but she had a smile on her face the whole time. It was emblematic of how she has dealt with her harder-than-imagined life this whole time, her optimism intact.

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