Newsom denies unemployment aid to undocumented Californians, after vetoing two other bills to help them

Governor Gavin Newsom announced today that he has vetoed a bill ordering the state to consider extending unemployment benefits to undocumented workers, dashing the hopes of advocates who have campaign since the COVID pandemic for this expansion.

The veto of Senate Bill 227 marks the second time he has blocked the idea — and the third time this month he has refused to open state programs to undocumented immigrants.

Last weekend, Newsom rejected a bill opening campus jobs to undocumented students in the University of California and California State University systems, citing legal concerns. And earlier this month, he vetoed an expansion allowing undocumented Californians to apply for state aid for first-time homebuyers, a program that had run out of money.

In his veto message on the unemployment bill, Newsom wrote that it “imposes impractical deadlines, presents operational problems, and requires funding that was not included in the budget.”
Veronica Alvarado, a worker advocate who campaigned for the bill, called the decision “shameful.”

“California is the world’s fifth-largest economy, fueled largely by immigrant labor,” Alvarado said in a press release. “It is shameful that Governor Newsom has not led our state toward a system that is fair for all workers. »

These vetoes come against a backdrop of increasingly hostile speeches against immigration during the presidential election.

After Republican lawmakers criticized the homebuying bill during the session, it went viral in conservative media and caught the attention of billionaire Elon Musk, who wrote about its social media platform X that the state was encouraging immigration by promising social benefits. Musk supports former President Donald Trump, who made illegal immigration his signature issue.
Newsom wrote that the campus jobs bill was too risky given that federal law prohibits hiring undocumented immigrants. His veto message suggested that advocates seek legal cover from the courts before passing the legislation.

Ahilan Arulanantham, a UCLA law professor and one of the architects of a new theory explaining why UC is allowed to hire undocumented students, said he “can’t remember the last time I had seen a major Democrat with a national profile block.” an opportunity for undocumented young people.

Mike Madrid, a GOP consultant, called vetoing such bills a safe political move for Newsom when Democrats nationally are seen as weak on border security. Vice President Kamala Harris’ rightward tilt on immigration has helped narrow that gap in swing state polls, Madrid said, but he described any immigration-related bill as too volatile so Newsom can touch it.

“For a California governor to sign something that would not be popular in those states on an area where she has only just begun to close the gap would be very problematic politically,” he said. “I suspect the main consideration is, ‘Could this affect the race for the White House?'”

Newsom’s office declined to comment. “The veto messages speak for themselves,” spokesman Brandon Richards said earlier this week.

But in his veto message, the governor sought to head off criticism, emphasizing in his letter vetoing the unemployment bill that the state “has taken significant steps to advance inclusion and equity for undocumented workers and mixed-status families who contribute significantly to California’s economy. and local communities.

He called on Congress to create pathways to citizenship for longtime residents and said he wanted both a “fair immigration system” and a “secure border.”

Not all political observers are convinced that the elections played a role in his decisions. Andrew Acosta, a Democratic strategist, said there were other “problems” with the bills, such as costs, and said the Republican Party was already using California to attack Democrats over immigration.

“Ninety percent of what happens in the state of California is budget-related,” he said.
“If Donald Trump wants to make California a problem, he has plenty to feed on. These three bills are not going to make or break the campaign.”

Unemployment insurance was one of the latest expansions advocates hoped California would undertake during a series of tight budget years, when the state committed billions of dollars to expand major safety net programs security for undocumented residents.

The state is home to more than 1.8 million undocumented immigrants, who have become eligible for driver’s licenses, the earned income tax credit and, recently, Medi-Cal. During the pandemic, the state created a disaster relief program for immigrants and lawmakers allowed immigrants to receive some state stimulus checks.

But the state budget deficit has slowed down. A planned expansion of state food assistance benefits to immigrants over 55 was scheduled for next year, but will be delayed until 2027.

Yeni Linares, an undocumented worker in Fontana who campaigned for increased unemployment, said that when her work dried up during the pandemic, there was no lifeline.

Her job cleaning homes and office buildings, she said, went from five to three days a week — and she made just $80 a day. Her family lost their car and their apartment, she said, and so was holed up in a relative’s house, where four families lived under one roof. During the move, she never received a check.

“The government left me completely abandoned,” said this 47-year-old woman, a domestic worker for 19 years, in Spanish. “It is not easy for an undocumented family to recover from such a huge impact. For us, the pandemic never ended.

Although the proposal was born out of the pandemic, its advocates say it can also be useful as climate change exacerbates job instability for vulnerable workers. Farm workers lose work days during storms and periods of extreme heat, and domestic workers during wildfires. Linares said she lost her job for up to two weeks straight this year when wildfires ravaged the mountains north of San Bernardino, where she was cleaning homes.

The bill was activists’ second attempt to win Newsom’s approval for unemployment benefits.

He vetoed a similar bill in 2022, saying there was no money for the program. The unemployment insurance system is financed by state and federal taxes imposed on employers; since the pandemic, the California system is in debt to the tune of $20 billion. Due to federal restrictions, public funds would likely be needed to finance a similar program for immigrants.

Such programs are rare, but other states have implemented them in recent years. Colorado created an unemployment program for undocumented workers in 2022, and New York created one during the pandemic that has since ended.

California defenders tried again this year. The bill, originally intended to give undocumented workers who lose their jobs up to $300 per week in benefits for up to 20 weeks, was watered down at the end of the legislative session to order the Department of Employment Development to study the issue, and by the end of next March, we will determine how to expand the program, including finding a source of funding.

The bill’s author, Sen. María Elena Durazo, a Los Angeles Democrat, said in August that she hoped it could prompt the department to consider undocumented workers as it undertakes a technological overhaul of the unemployment system.

Before the veto, Linares criticized Newsom for delaying his decision and called the political rhetoric around immigration an “injustice.”

“We’re fed up,” she said. “We don’t ask for anything for free. We view it as something we have earned through our work.

CalMatters Higher Education Reporter Mikhail Zinchteyn contributed to this story.