Good morning, Inequality Insights readers. I’m CalMatters reporter Felicia Mello, filling in for Wendy Fry who is on special assignment.
President Joe Biden’s executive order limiting asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border has divided California’s Democrats and led to concerns among immigration advocates that crossings will become more deadly for migrants, Fry reports.
The order, signed Tuesday, suspends most migrants’ right to seek asylum between regular ports of entry whenever border crossings surge above 2,500 per day. That threshold has already been met this year, meaning the measure went into effect immediately, though the American Civil Liberties Union has said it plans to sue to block it.
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla blasted President Biden for signing the order, which he said “undermined American values” by abandoning the country’s obligations to provide refuge to people fleeing persecution and violence.
But other California Democrats said the move was necessary at a time when Congress has failed to pass bipartisan immigration reform. Driven by economic and political instability in Central and South America, border crossings between official points of entry reached a record high in December, though they have fallen in recent months.
“The current system is failing both local communities and asylum seekers,” said San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria in a statement supporting Biden. The San Diego region has again become an epicenter of illegal border crossings after years in which traffic had shifted to Arizona and Texas.
Immigration advocates say they worry that an increasing number of migrants will risk their lives by seeking to cross in extremely remote areas to avoid detection. Biden’s order also would impose drastic consequences on asylum seekers who try to enter the U.S. while the ban is in effect — they could be deported within hours and barred from entering the country for five years.
Biden’s order only applies to asylum seekers and does not affect the approximately 150,000 border residents who legally cross each day for work, school and shopping. Those people have also recently faced hourslong wait times to cross which, Fry reports, have crippled local businesses.
Biden is borrowing from Trump’s immigration playbook — the former president also sought to close the border to asylum seekers in 2018, but courts blocked that effort.
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Hazardous work. With a deadly lung disease afflicting young workers who cut stone for countertops, California seeks to regulate the businesses that employ them, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Student loan help. Overwhelmed by your student loans? California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation has launched a network of community counselors to help borrowers understand and pay off their debts. Borrowers who need help can visit studentloanhelp.dfpi.ca.gov or call (888) 774-2227.
CalFresh conundrum. Most University of California and community college students who qualify for CalFresh don’t receive the food assistance, a California Policy Lab study finds.
Saving maternity care. Seventeen Los Angeles County hospitals have stopped delivering babies in the last decade, primarily in low-income communities. CalMatters’ Kristen Hwang, Ana Ibarra and Erica Yee followed one non-profit hospital’s quest to preserve its labor and delivery unit.
Hate reports. A state hotline set up to collect information about bias incidents received more than 1,000 reports in its first year of operation, officials say. The most commonly reported motivation for hate incidents was race and ethnicity: Black people were most often targeted.
Test case. A small farmworker community in Fresno County has become a testing ground for a controversial effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by injecting hydrogen into natural gas lines, Capital & Main reports.
Tax bill surprise. Every tax season hundreds of thousands of Californians, many of them low-income households, find out they owe hundreds of dollars to the IRS because they accepted more in Covered California health insurance subsidies than they were allowed, CalMatters’ Ana Ibarra reports.
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The California Divide Team