California
California’s Undocumented Children Are Going Hungry
Final month, Nourish California and the California Immigrant Coverage Middle revealed a devastating report, based mostly on knowledge collected by UCLA’s Middle for Well being Coverage Analysis, on meals insecurity confronted by undocumented immigrant households within the Golden State.
The conclusions of the report are stunning, albeit not shocking: Totally 45 p.c of the state’s undocumented residents are meals insecure, with the preponderance of meals insecurity occurring amongst youngsters. The researchers discovered that 64 p.c of kids aged 17 or beneath lived in food-insecure households. Against this, 11 p.c of all American households and 10 p.c of all Californian households are meals insecure, in response to knowledge generated by United Well being Foundations.
The meals insecurity report’s authors additionally estimated that 625,000 undocumented adults within the state stay in households which might be beneath the federal poverty line ($26,246 for a household of 4). This in a state the place the typical hire for a two-bedroom condominium is greater than $1,700 per 30 days, and the place the $15 per hour minimal wage was speculated to carry financial safety inside attain of California’s low-wage earners.
Through the Trump years, many authorized immigrants have been systematically excluded from public advantages beneath the Public Cost rule. As for the undocumented, Trump’s crew wished to push them as far into the financial margins as doable, making their lives workouts in continuous insecurity. On the state degree, in a pushback towards Trumpian extra, some states did make efforts to create advantages packages for undocumented residents, however usually these packages weren’t accessed in giant numbers by immigrants. Some frightened that any paper path linking them to advantages could possibly be utilized by the federal authorities to trace them down and start deportation proceedings.
When emergency monetary packages have been put collectively by Congress in the course of the pandemic, they systematically excluded the undocumented—although thousands and thousands of undocumented staff have been immediately left with out revenue as inns have been shuttered, the garment trade went into hibernation, and so forth; thousands and thousands of others stored their jobs however lacked entry to even probably the most rudimentary well being advantages. This even if newspapers have been full of tales about how so many undocumented residents, and their members of the family, heroically carried out “important work” to maintain a pandemic-ravaged financial system and society on their toes.
States like California tried to plug these large gaps within the social security internet. In April, 2020 Governor Newsom introduced $75 million in catastrophe aid for the undocumented, and philanthropic organizations pledged to boost and distribute one other $50 million. It was a noble gesture, however insufficient to the size of want, with solely about 7 p.c of the state’s greater than 2 million undocumented residents accessing the funds. A patchwork of money advantages offered by the town, with companions within the enterprise and philanthropic communities, additionally offered some advantages to undocumented Los Angelenos. Once more, the size of want outpaced the response.
In the beginning of this yr, Newsom proposed increasing public meals help packages to members of the undocumented group who’re not less than 55 years previous. The proposal adopted California’s current growth of MediCal to cowl undocumented residents over the age of fifty (and his proposal in February to take this a step additional and mainly remove age restrictions on entry to MediCal).
These are good proposals—they usually actually place California in an ethical universe radically completely different from Texas’s. There, Governor Greg Abbott just lately instructed testing the boundaries of Supreme Court docket rulings mandating that states pay for undocumented youngsters to attend Okay-12 colleges. However the longer these proposals stay aspirational quite than operatioanl, the extra undocumented households—even in Deep Blue states like California—will slip deeper into poverty and starvation.
As of this spring, California’s undocumented thousands and thousands nonetheless stay ineligible for CalFresh, the state’s implementation of the federal Supplemental Diet Help Program, which distributes meals help {dollars} to qualifying people and households. In consequence, a whole lot of hundreds of Californians are going hungry.
Laws on the difficulty was debated final yr. Senate Invoice 464, launched in early 2021 by Senator Melissa Hurtado, would have expanded California’s dietary help packages to cowl all low-income Californians, no matter their immigration standing. The Senate handed the invoice, however the Meeting held off on voting for it.
An array of organizations that work on meals safety points have come out in favor of the laws in current months. It’s previous time that California’s legislators resurrected this laws and despatched it by for Governor Newsom to signal. In any case, the state is at the moment flush with money; its funds surplus this yr stands at a whopping $68 billion. Even after placing apart billions of {dollars} in case of an financial downturn unhealthy, there nonetheless should be funds accessible to make sure that large numbers of undocumented youngsters don’t go to mattress hungry each evening.
A Southern California college student who went missing in a popular mountain town over the weekend has been found dead in Big Bear Lake.
Tanner Prentiss, 22, was last seen on May 17 at around 12:30 a.m. in Big Bear Lake, California, according to the city’s sheriff station. Search crews located his body in the water Monday shortly before 10:30 a.m. near the city’s Pine Knot Marina.
CBS News reported that deputies searching the lake from a helicopter spotted Prentiss’ body, which was then recovered by a dive team. Deputies are investigating how Prentiss ended up in the water, the outlet reported.
No foul play is suspected and his cause of death is under investigation by the coroner’s office, the Big Bear Sheriff Station confirmed on Facebook.
The University of California at Santa Barbara student visited the lake with a group of friends, who reported him missing after he failed to return to their rental cabin, according to local stations KTLA and KABC.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to Tanner’s family, friends and all those who are affected by his loss. The family is requesting privacy as they navigate through this tragic incident,” the sheriff station wrote.
‘This loss is more than we can bear’
Prentiss’ grandmother, Marilyn Taylor, wrote on Facebook that her family is devastated by Tanner’s passing and thanked everyone who supported their family during this time.
“Tanner was the funny guy, always smiling, tons of friends, charismatic, responsible and a really good person. This loss is more than we can bear at this time,” she wrote.
In a statement, UC Santa Barbara called Tanner’s death “heartbreaking” for the entire university community and expressed condolences to his friends and families.
“We understand the impact and stress surrounding this tragedy and are committed to supporting our campus community who may be impacted,” the school said in a statement shared with USA TODAY. “Our campus offers resources to students, staff, and faculty who are in need of support.”
California
Heat wave is coming to Southern California, with triple-digit temps in San Fernando Valley
Meteorologists are projecting unusually high temperatures in Southern California this week, with the heat predicted to climb above 100 degrees in the San Fernando Valley and reach the 90s elsewhere.
After a balmy weekend, temperatures are expected to start rising Monday. “We’re looking at pretty widespread 80 to 90 degrees for highs” Monday across the Valley, said David Gomberg, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard, which covers Los Angeles County.
Temperatures will soar by midweek, hitting 103 degrees in Woodland Hills on Wednesday and 101 degrees on Thursday, the National Weather Service predicted.
Read more: Commentary: Nuclear reactors help power Los Angeles. Should we panic, or be grateful?
In downtown Los Angeles, meanwhile, temperatures are expected to climb from the low 80s on Monday to the mid-80s on Tuesday and finally to the low 90s on Wednesday, before dropping back to the high-80s on Thursday.
“I’d say Wednesday and Thursday are going to be the two hottest days,” Gomberg said. “Saturday is when things should get back to normal.”
People enjoy the warm weather at Echo Park Lake. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
The weather service expects to issue heat advisories, warning people to think twice if considering strenuous midday activity such as hiking.
“Also, the very old and little children are always going to be vulnerable to those heat events,” Gomberg said.
Read more: Missing camper ‘miraculously’ found alive after surviving weeks in snowy High Sierra
Temperatures in the Inland Empire, meanwhile, are expected to reach the mid- to upper 90s on Wednesday and Thursday. In inland Orange County cities such as Irvine and Anaheim, temperatures will hit the upper 80s and low 90s by midweek.
“Our highs will get back to the mid-80s by Saturday, which is pretty close to the climatological norm for late May,” said Dave Munyan, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in San Diego, which covers Orange County and the Inland Empire. “It’s not going to be as hot as the mini heat wave we had two weeks ago.”
He characterized the coming week as “abnormally warm, not record-breaking heat, but definitely something that could take some folks off guard because it’s May and they expect it to be cooler and cloudier.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
A damaged building is seen after an explosion in Palm Springs, Calif., on Saturday.
Eric Thayer/AP
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Eric Thayer/AP
A fatal explosion outside a California fertility clinic Saturday morning is being investigated as an act of terrorism, according to an FBI official.
One person was killed and four were injured in the weekend blast that sent debris flying across multiple blocks in all directions, said Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.
“Make no mistake, this is an intentional act of terrorism,” he said during a Saturday news conference.
Investigators were “not actively out searching for a suspect” but had identified a person of interest, Davis added. He did not say if that person was the one killed in the explosion.
Palm Springs Police Chief Andrew Mills said the public was not in any more danger. “I also want to make sure that our community understands this is an isolated incident. I am confident that the community is not at risk any longer,” he said.
American Reproductive Centers said Saturday in a post on Facebook that a vehicle had exploded in the parking lot near its Palm Springs facility earlier in the day. The clinic said no staff members were hurt and there was no damage to any of its eggs, embryos and reproductive material.
“This moment has shaken us—but it has not stopped us,” the post reads. “We will continue to serve with strength, love, and the hope that brings new life into the world.”
A firefighter stands at the scene of an explosion in Palm Springs, Calif., on Saturday.
Eric Thayer/AP
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Eric Thayer/AP
Davis said the FBI believes the fertility clinic was targeted.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said Saturday evening that she had been briefed on the explosion. “We are working to learn more, but let me be clear: the Trump administration understands that women and mothers are the heartbeat of America,” she said in a post on X. “Violence against a fertility clinic is unforgivable.”
Bomb technicians were scouring the blast scene Saturday as part of the ongoing investigation, which was being led by the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
First responders arrived at the scene around 11 a.m. local time Saturday morning to find a debris field stretching over 250 yards, Davis said. He added that investigators were looking into the possibility that the bombing was live streamed.
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