With California Set to Receive Biggest Bailout in History, State Earmarks Millions to House Immigrants in Hotels
Under the leadership of Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats, California has drastically mishandled its COVID-19 response. While American citizens in their state are suffering as a result of their missteps, they have decided to instead provide accommodations for immigrants.
According to The Sacramento Bee, California will spend $28 million to help noncitizens who enter the U.S. seeking asylum.
A majority of that money — about $20 million — will be used to pay for immigrants to isolate in hotel rooms for up to 10 days because of the coronavirus, the report said.
These immigrants seeking asylum will be awaiting their court dates. That means that some of them could be deemed refugees, but others might not be granted legal protection and would become illegal immigrants if they remain in the country.
In any case, these are not American citizens. So at a time when Californians are struggling, Democratic leaders have chosen to prioritize noncitizens.
How can the state afford such a costly service during the pandemic? Well, it’s expecting a massive windfall courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made sure the state she represents is getting a big chunk of the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, which has $350 billion set aside for states and local jurisdictions.
According to Forbes, the package allocates more money to California than any other state — a whopping $42.3 billion.
That amount was inflated courtesy of a last-minute move by the speaker, the report said.
“Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House Democrats changed the allocation formula from being based on population to the unemployment rate,” Forbes said.
“This change caused 23 states to gain $31.9 billion and 27 states to lose that funding.”
Who was the biggest beneficiary of that change? None other than California, which stands to receive an extra $6.7 billion under the new allocation system.
There is a blatant problem with this allocation system.
The reason California’s unemployment rate is so high is that Newsom shut down the economy and killed jobs.
Meanwhile, Republican governors such as Ron DeSantis in Florida kept their states relatively open and did not destroy their economies.
DeSantis’ reward? A $2.3 billion decrease in funds under the new allocation plan.
Furthermore, despite the drastically different responses, the death rates in these two states are extraordinarily similar.
Florida ranks 26th in the nation with 146 deaths per 100,000 people as of Friday, according to The New York Times. California ranks 30th with 136 deaths per million — and it has a much younger population, with a median age of 36.5 (sixth youngest in the nation) to Florida’s 42.0 (fifth oldest).
Democrats would have a hard time justifying a $28 million expense for noncitizens in any situation, let alone the one we are in now. If California is in such dire straights that it needs an extra $6.7 billion from the federal government, how can it afford to spend massive sums of money on immigrants?
The state’s Democratic leaders do not seem to know the first thing about budgeting. Instead, they appear to think that the government has an infinite supply of money to give out at their pleasure.
In a worldwide crisis, governments are often forced to choose between their citizens and those of other nations. Rather than putting Americans first, Democrats have attempted to dodge the choice altogether by spending money that they don’t have.
Eventually, all this spending is going to come back to bite the United States. It is impossible to keep shelling out massive sums of money without suffering the consequences.
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