Migrants to California released on San Diego streets

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors is expected to vote today on a request for another $3 million in funding for a welcome center that has helped as many as 800 migrants a day reach their final desired destinations.

As Justo Robles, Alejandra Reyes-Velarde and Wendy Fry from CalMatters’ California Divide team explain, from September through November, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has released more than 42,000 people onto San Diego county streets. With neither directions nor resources, migrants often rely on churches and nonprofits to find shelter. 

U.S. border authorities did not answer questions from CalMatters about why it is dropping off migrants in San Diego County. Meanwhile, charities in the region struggle to offer assistance to the influx of tens of thousands of people who have crossed the border.

In October, the county supervisors awarded the nonprofit SBCS (formerly known as South Bay Community Services) an initial $3 million for migrant support services using leftover federal relief money. But those funds are expected to run dry by December, and the group is seeking another $3 million so that its welcome center can continue to provide food, toiletries and charging stations for the people who come through.

The nonprofit also transports migrants the 15 miles from federal custody to its center (a task that border authorities used to handle), which costs about $6,000 a day. There’s also the $600,000 the nonprofit has spent on airfare, hotels and shelters since acquiring funds in October; and $859,000 hiring local organizations to assist in its response.

Some county officials say that immigration falls under the purview of the federal government, and oppose spending local money to assist migrants.

• Republican Supervisor Jim Desmond: “What the federal government should do is allow as many asylum seekers across the border that they can manage. What they’re doing is they’re allowing more than they can manage.”

Board of Supervisors Chairperson Nora Vargas, a Democrat, argues that it’s due to federal inaction — Congress has yet to act on President Biden’s $14 billion supplemental budget request for border-related issues — that nonprofits need this money.

• Vargas: “​​As a county, the health and wellbeing of our community continues to be a top priority.”

For migrants who have trekked thousands of miles to come to the U.S., the welcome center can be immensely helpful. 

Fleeing from Afghanistan to escape potential persecution by the Taliban regime, 24-year-old Fraidoon Noori went to Pakistan, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Central America before landing in Mexico. He was eventually transported to the San Diego center where volunteers helped him find a flight to Seattle so he could be reunited with his uncle.

• Noori: “It’s everybody’s dream to come to America…. I feel free now. When I was in Afghanistan I was afraid when I saw the police. I feared they’d arrest me.” 

For more on San Diego’s efforts to assist migrants, read Justo, Alexjandra and Wendy’s story.

Though labor groups may have notched a few key legislative wins this session, low-wage workers in California must still contend with dishonest employers and unfair labor practices in their daily lives.

After an investigation of two poultry plants, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Monday that a major California poultry processor and its related companies must pay nearly $3.8 million in back wages and penalties for employing children and for failing to pay overtime to their employees.

The Exclusive Poultry Inc., which supplies chicken to distributors that sell to supermarkets including Ralphs and Grocery Outlet, set up several shell companies to employ children as young as 14. The children “worked excessive hours,” deboned poultry with sharp knives and operated “power-driven lifts to move pallets,” the labor department said. The company also cut the wages of workers who cooperated with investigators, and did not pay employees overtime when they worked as much as 60 hours a week. 

The payout includes $100,614 in back wages for workers who faced retaliation, and about $500,000 in punitive damages and penalties. The company will also be monitored for three years. 

This isn’t the first wage theft case against Exclusive Poultry Inc. and its owner, Tony Bran. In April, the California Department of Industrial Relations reported that the company was part of a $1.47 million settlement for underpaying more than 300 workers in five processing plants in the Los Angeles area. 

With California workers claiming at least $338 million in lost or stolen wages in 2021, wage theft is a big problem, and is likely a priority for Assemblymember Liz Ortega, the new chairperson of the labor committee who is assuming her role fresh off the heels of California’s “hot labor summer.” 

In a Q&A with Alejandra Reyes-Velarde of CalMatters’ California Divide team, the Democrat from Hayward said among her priorities for the next legislative session — in addition to the gender pay gap and an aging labor force — is to ramp up accountability and enforcement: “I want to look into how we take the great laws we have to help both employers and workers, and really look at what we need to do next…”

For more about Ortega’s take on labor policy, read Alejandra’s interview here.

Speaking of legislative leadership transitions: Feb. 5 — one month into the 2024 session — is the date jointly announced Monday by Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins and her successor, Sen. Mike McGuire, for when he will be formally elected and take the post. 

Unlike the messy and contentious Assembly speaker transition this year from Anthony Rendon to Robert Rivas, the Senate one was done privately and apparently amicably and announced in August.

Atkins, a San Diego Democrat, has held the post since 2018 and hits her term limit at the end of 2024. She’s considering running for governor in 2026. McGuire, a Healdsburg Democrat, will move up from Senate majority leader and terms out at the end of 2026.

Monday marked the start of four one-day strikes by California State University faculty as their union negotiates for higher wages and expanded parental leave with the country’s largest public four-year university system.

As CalMatters higher education reporter Mikhail Zinshteyn writes, the first of these rolling walkouts kicked off at Cal Poly Pomona and featured union members, elected officials and even folklórico dancers. Among the demonstrators was Charles Toombs, union president and professor of Africana Studies at San Diego State University, who said if the strikes don’t work, “we’ll be back.”

• Toombs, at the rally: “Nobody gives you nothing in this world, and you are showing that what is important to you in the CSU is that you have working conditions where you can afford to live, where you can have class sizes that are just not outrageous.”

Assemblymember Sabrina Cervantes, a Democrat from Corona and chairperson of the California Latino Legislative Caucus, as well as Sasha Renée Pérez, the vice mayor of Alhambra and Cal State L.A. alumnus, also gave remarks in support of faculty. 

The rate of pay increases for Cal State executives far outpace the rate for faculty. The union, which represents 29,000 professors, lecturers, librarians and others, is seeking a 12% pay bump this academic year — plus additional wage hikes for the lowest-paid instructors, a full semester of parental leave and other benefits.

Already facing a $1.5 billion funding gap, Cal State would have to commit $380 million more to meet union pay demands. Its leadership has proposed a 5% pay hike instead, with 5% increases for each of the next two years. In a fact-finding report published Friday, however, a state labor mediator suggested Cal State should offer a 7% raise.

Faculty at San Francisco State plan to strike today, followed by CSU Los Angeles and finally Sacramento State on Thursday. Learn more about Cal State’s strikes and the ongoing labor talks in Mikhail’s story.

In response to the shutdown of bankrupt Madera Community Hospital in January, state lawmakers allocated $300 million in interest-free loans for struggling medical facilities. The $52 million earmarked for Madera Hospital specifically was contingent on the hospital securing a purchase or partnership deal.

But earlier this month, Adventist Health, which was in talks to take over the hospital, backed out of the deal, according to CalMatters health reporter Ana B. Ibarra. It’s the hospital’s second failed effort to find a buyer and another blow to its potential loan. (Madera Hospital still has dibs on the money, but if a deal isn’t reached to operate it, the loan could be returned to the emergency fund for other hospitals to use.)

Meanwhile, four other hospitals have begun receiving their money, and more are expected to receive theirs in the upcoming weeks. Chinese Hospital in San Francisco, for example, received nearly $10.4 million in loans. The hospital has reported a net loss every year since 2016, and as part of its turnaround plan, it’s seeking to renegotiate reimbursement rates with both private and public insurers.

For more on California’s Distressed Hospital Loan Program, which closes at the end of 2031, read Ana’s story.