California Bill Would Give Unemployment Benefits to Illegal Immigrants

A man who is unemployed waits in line to enter a bookkeeping shop near the U.S.–Mexico border in Calexico, Calif., on July 24, 2020. Mario Tama/Getty Images

Commentary

On Jan. 1, illegal immigrants in California received free medical care. That was thanks to Assembly Bill 133, which California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law in July 2021. Cost: $4 billion more per year, as an estimated 764,000 illegal immigrants are added to the already stuffed rolls of the 14.6 million Californians on Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the Medicare program.