California Dems want to give noncitizens unemployment. Will Gavin Newsom let them?

Finally good news.  Gavin VETOED a Democrat bill to give illegal aliens unemployment checks.  Federal law is clear—you can not support or encourage illegal aliens to stay in the country.  Sacramento Democrats want to FINANCE THEIR STAY IN THE FORMER Golden State.

““Isit veto bait? Sure,” said Andrew Acosta, a Democratic consultant, adding that cost would also be a legitimate reason to kill the bill.

“This governor’s done quite a bit on the immigration side and has been pretty vocal about trying to make California a sanctuary for folks,” Acosta said. “I don’t know if this bill is going to be the be-all and end-all or somehow used against him, that he’s now anti-immigrant.”

“Some of these things sound good, but there is a cost associated with them, and we’re in a massive budget deficit,” Acosta said.

Not mention ed that California owes the Feds $20 billion, plus interest on a loan to us, so we can continue to pay unemployment . So far, we do not have a plan to pay off the debt—but Democrats wanted to add to it.  Any wonder California is in a DOOM LOOP

California Dems want to give noncitizens unemployment. Will Gavin Newsom let them?

Or, the governor could green-light a blueprint to give noncitizens unemployment benefits.

By Eric He, Politico,  9/21/24  https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/21/gavin-newsom-undocumented-immigrants-00180336

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is weighing whether to give undocumented immigrants unemployment benefits — just weeks after vetoing another politically explosive proposal to help noncitizens buy homes.

The Democratic governor is facing continued pressure from his own party to deliver progressive priorities just as GOP leaders are saying a President Kamala Harris would let liberals run amok in Washington the way they do in California. But the termed-out Newsom is also trying to cement his legacy and appease critics who say he’s overly focused on national politics at the expense of local governance.

Spokespeople for the governor would only say the measure “will be evaluated on its merits” by the Sept. 30 deadline to sign state legislation, though his finance department opposed an earlier version of the bill citing funding concerns. Newsom has repeatedly warned lawmakers in the Democratic-dominated Legislature not to “virtue signal” in an election year.

“Is it veto bait? Sure,” said Andrew Acosta, a Democratic consultant, adding that cost would also be a legitimate reason to kill the bill.

“This governor’s done quite a bit on the immigration side and has been pretty vocal about trying to make California a sanctuary for folks,” Acosta said. “I don’t know if this bill is going to be the be-all and end-all or somehow used against him, that he’s now anti-immigrant.”

“Some of these things sound good, but there is a cost associated with them, and we’re in a massive budget deficit,” Acosta said.

National conservative media have seized on the unemployment benefits bill as radical. Republicans at home have framed this and other proposals from the Legislature, like an attempt earlier this year to ban youth tackle football, as out-of-touch with even most Californians.

Brian Jones, the Republican Leader in the state Senate, said that Newsom is likely to weigh the national consequences of his decision.

“He’s smart,” Jones said. “He’s the governor of the biggest state in the country. I’ve got to believe he’s thinking about it.”

Assemblymember Alex Lee, a progressive Democrat who supports the bill and has had ambitious legislation like social housing rejected by Newsom, expects a veto from the governor, but added that Newsom sometimes takes “out of the box” action.

“From my view, I would say the national discussion is always a factor in whether he signs or vetoes bills on all the issues,” Lee said.

The measure would not automatically give undocumented immigrants unemployment. Instead it would require the state’s Employment Development Department to plan for a permanent program that would provide cash assistance to those workers, who are prohibited from receiving unemployment insurance under state law. The agency declined to comment on the bill, though it projected in January that the unemployment insurance fund could reach a $21 billion deficit by the end of next year.

The measure was pared back to a study bill during the final days of the legislative session. The original version would have made unemployed undocumented workers eligible for $300 a week in cash payments. It would have been capped at 20 weeks, applied only to workers who were unemployed in 2025 and sunset the program in 2027.

There were many qualification requirements for the Excluded Workers Program under the original proposal. They included being unemployed for at least a week, working at least 93 hours or earning $1,300 over three months. The undocumented workers also would have had to provide wage statements, tax returns or timesheets. They could also show a combination of other records such as evidence of regular direct deposits, commuting receipts, an employee badge or other communications establishing a relationship with an employer.

The bill’s Democratic sponsor defended the measures as a crucial safety net.

“Unemployment insurance is a lifeline when disaster strikes,” Los Angeles state Sen. María Elena Durazo said in a statement. “Over 1 million Californians are excluded from unemployment benefits simply because of their immigration status. Yet, taxes on the wages of undocumented workers already contribute millions to the UI system in California each year, even though they don’t see a penny of the benefits.”

Durazo, during a recent hearing, said she would work with the governor’s office to address operations issues and cost concerns. “We can’t do it through the current system” because undocumented immigrants are not eligible for federal dollars that contribute to the state’s UI fund, she said.

The state’s Department of Finance last year wrote in an analysis that the bill carried significant costs not included in the budget. The agency also found that enacting the program would have resulted in “infeasible timelines” because establishing a new IT system would take multiple years.

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Newsom vetoed a similar bill two years ago that would have created a pilot program, noting the state had made other investments to protect undocumented Californians with access to health care, food assistance and inflation relief.

“As we continue forward, this bill needs further work to address the operational issues and fiscal concerns, including a dedicated funding source for benefits,” Newsom wrote at the time.

The state’s unemployment insurance fund is also at risk of insolvency, with the legislative analyst’s office projecting that its deficit will only increase next year. Newsom pointed to this last year when he dealt organized labor a blow by vetoing a proposal that would have given striking workers access to unemployment benefits. Lawmakers rejected a similar bill this year over the Gaza campus protests.

Funding for the program in the budget was not included either last year or this year, despite the backing of more than 120 immigrant and worker rights organizations. Advocates then pivoted to using existing EDD funding to create a blueprint rather than deliver a bill the governor could again reject by citing cost.

“We are not giving up on this,” said Maria Moreno, senior campaign coordinator at Jobs with Justice San Francisco. “This is something that is essential for our communities in the state of California. So this is like a milestone on the road to having an Excluded Workers Program in the future, when we’re ready and we have the funds to implement it.”

There are an estimated 1.1 million undocumented workers in California who generate $3.7 billion per year in state and tax revenues, according to a 2023 report by the Community and Labor Center at UC Merced. The report found that noncitizen workers are twice as likely as citizens to make below a living wage.

Ingrid Brostrom, the labor center’s climate and sustainability program director, pushed back on the perception the proposal would amount to a “giveaway.”

“Folks are paying into the system and receiving nothing on the other end,” Brostrom said. “So they’re subsidizing folks that are eligible for these programs.”

Colorado was the first state to allow undocumented immigrants to access unemployment benefits, passing bipartisan legislation in 2022 to provide direct cash payments to workers with a W-2 form or pay stubs.

It’s not the first time California has helped noncitizens who are out of work.

In 2020, Newsom signed off on $125 million in Covid-19 disaster relief assistance for undocumented workers who were not eligible for federal economic impact payments, providing 150,000 people with one-time payments of $500 each. The state also gave $4,500 per household to undocumented families impacted by the winter storms that hit the state between December 2022 and April 2023.

New York provided $2.1 billion in financial assistance to undocumented immigrants who lost work during the pandemic, but an effort this year to create a $500 million program that also included freelance workers stalled in the statehouse amid reluctance from Democrats in swing districts, though there are plans to reintroduce the bill next year.

Newsom has another thorny immigration-related proposal to consider this month, with a separate bill on his desk that would require public universities to hire undocumented students without work permits. A state agency next week is also set to weigh whether to allow some undocumented immigrants to access a government-run program that subsidizes phone bill discounts.

Jones, the Republican Senate leader who sent a letter to Newsom urging him to veto the unemployment insurance measure, said Republicans will tie the bill to the presidential election. He contended that the measure will exacerbate “this open border scheme that’s going on right now from the Biden-Harris administration.” Harris has veered to the right on immigration since becoming the Democratic nominee.

“The bottom line is the rest of America should be very concerned about a Harris-Walz administration continuing this policy and continuing to undermine our immigration process in America,” Jones said.

Newsom has faced lobbying from both sides. Yeni Linares, an undocumented immigrant who has cleaned houses in Southern California for nearly two decades, said she lost her car and apartment during the pandemic when she couldn’t work due to lockdown measures. She reminded Newsom that rejecting the proposal could also cost him politically.

“The children of immigrant workers can vote,” Linares said in Spanish, through an interpreter. “He should be thinking about them — as well as the immigrant parents of the children — because if he has future political aspirations, he should be on the side of the immigrants.”