Ford says it can’t spend any more to secure a UAW contract

• October 12, 2023

A top Ford executive says the company has reached the limit of how much money it will spend to get a contract agreement with the striking United Auto Workers union.

Kumar Galhotra, president of Ford Blue, the company’s internal combustion engine business, told reporters Thursday that Ford stretched to get to the offer it now has on the table.

His comments are starkly different from those made by UAW President Shawn Fain Wednesday when he announced an escalation of the union’s strike by walking out at Ford’s largest and most profitable factory. The apparently widening labor rift indicates that Ford and the union may be in for a lengthy strike that could cost the company and workers billions of dollars.

Fain said in Wednesday that Ford told UAW bargainers for nearly two weeks that it would make another counteroffer on economic issues. But at a meeting called by the union, the company didn’t increase its previous offer, Fain said. “Ford hasn’t gotten the message” to bargain for a fair contract, Fain said in announcing the walkout by 8,700 workers at the company’s Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville.

“We’ve been very patient working with the company on this,” he said in a video. “They have not met expectations, they’re not even coming to the table on it.”

Galhotra called Ford’s offer “incredibly positive” and said Ford never indicated to the union that it would be increased.

“We have been very clear we are at the limit,” he said on a conference call with reporters. “We risk the ability to invest in the business and profitably grow. And profitable growth is in the best interest of everybody at Ford.”

The company has a set amount of money, but is willing to move dollars around in a way that might fit the union’s needs, he said, adding that he still thinks it’s possible to reach a deal.

The escalation of the strike came nearly four weeks after the union began its walkouts against Ford and Detroit counterparts General Motors and Jeep maker Stellantis on Sept. 15, with one assembly plant from each company. The union later added 38 parts warehouses at GM and Stellantis, and then three Ford and Stellantis assembly plants, involving a total of 33,700 workers.

On Thursday, Fain hinted at further action against Stellantis.

“Here’s to hoping talks at Stellantis today are more productive than Ford yesterday,” Fain wrote on X, formerly Twitter, without saying what might happen.

A person with direct knowledge of the talks said the union met with Stellantis Thursday morning and was to return for more talks in the afternoon. The person, who didn’t want to be identified because he is not authorized to discuss negotiations, said talks were active with GM and Stellantis, but he was not aware of any negotiations with Ford.

So far the union has not announced any further job actions, although Fain is set to brief the membership in a video appearance Friday morning.

Ford’s sprawling truck plant in Kentucky makes heavy-duty F-Series pickup trucks and large Ford and Lincoln SUVs, the company’s most lucrative products. The vehicles made at the plant generate $25 billion per year in revenue, more than Southwest Airlines and Marriott, the company said.

Ford said the expanded strike puts 13 other Ford plants that supply or receive parts at risk, as well as 600 parts supply companies that would have to lay off workers. In all, the strike at Kentucky Truck affects 100,000 workers, the company said.

Last week the union said Ford’s general wage offer, for instance, is up to 23% over four years, after starting at 9%. GM and Stellantis were at 20%.

Anthony Spencer, who has worked at the truck plant for eight years, said the surprise walkout would get Ford’s attention.

“We know it’s going to hit them. We lose a lot of millions of dollars every day that we don’t run,” said Spencer, who is the local union’s recording secretary and helped organize the walkout.

​ Orange County Register 

EPA to consider making regional warehouse pollution rule federally enforceable

• October 12, 2023

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Pacific Southwest Division will consider whether to approve a new air pollution rule, based on a recently OK’d regulatory program targeting warehouse and truck traffic emissions established by the Southland’s air quality watchdog agency — which would essentially make the local rule federally enforceable.

The federal agency announced the possible approval on Thursday, Oct. 12.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District, a government agency charged with cleaning and protecting the air within Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, approved two rules requiring large warehouses to offset pollution from the truck traffic they attract in 2021.

The agency’s Rule 2035 established the Warehouse Actions and Investments to Reduce Emissions Program, and Rule 316 established a schedule of administrative fees, charged to the warehouses required to comply with the WAIRE Program, in order to fund its implementation.

The WAIRE Program, according to the AQMD’s website, offers warehouses that are more than 100,000 square feet incentives to offset the various air pollution emissions they produce during the scope of their operations.

“The rule allows warehouses to earn WAIRE points by completing actions such as investing in zero emission and/or near-zero emission technologies,” the EPA said in its announcement, “using solar power, installing onsite ZE charging or fueling infrastructure, or installing filtration systems in qualified buildings such as schools.”

The Los Angeles and Long Beach region has long held the title for the most ozone-polluted region in the nation — a problem worsened by the area’s ground-level traffic, industrial operations and ports.

The transportation sector is a major contributor to ground-level smog, according to the EPA. Near constant vehicle traffic on LA and Long Beach freeways, in the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, and in the skies all contribute to ozone-layer depletion and smog formation.

But warehouses — the target of the AQMD’s new program — are also significant contributors, largely because of the truck traffic they attract to and from their facilities.

That traffic results in the formation of pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter, both of which can have negative impacts on human health.

Residents most likely to live by freeways, refineries and other industrial facilities have historically been people who are in poverty and communities of color.

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The same is true in Long Beach, where those who live closest to the port and the 710 Freeway tend to be low-income and people of color — and those residents have worse health outcomes than the city as a whole.

The WAIRE Program is still in the implementation process, according to the AQMD’s inaugural report about the effort; The first report was published in January, and AQMD plans to publish new reports annually.

In WAIRE’s first year, the report said, the AQMD primarily focused on conducting outreach to business owners within the warehousing industry who will be required to comply with the rules — alongside developing an online portal to administer the program.

Qualifying warehouses, the AQMD said, will be required to enroll in the WAIRE Program by Jan. 31, 2025.

The EPA, meanwhile, will consider adopting its own South Coast Rule, based on AQMD’s program, that’s meant to reduce emissions from warehouses and subsequent truck traffic.

“I have travelled to the Inland Empire and throughout the South Coast and seen firsthand how Black and Brown communities are bearing the brunt of goods moving through our country,” EPA Pacific Southwest regional administrator Martha Guzman said.  “This rule is an essential step toward protecting Californians that continue to shoulder a large burden of air pollution for all of us.”

The EPA is currently accepting public comments about the proposal through Nov. 13, according to the Federal Register. If the rule is OK’d, the EPA will be able to regulate emissions from warehouses and trucks as outlined by the AQMD under the federal Clean Air Act.

Folks can submit comments about the rule online at tinyurl.com/EPApubliccomments.

​ Orange County Register 

Governor Newsom celebrates ‘paradigm shifting’ mental health legislation in LA

• October 12, 2023

Governor Gavin Newsom gathered with civic leaders at Los Angeles General Medical Center on Thursday, Oct. 12 to celebrate the signing of two laws intended to transform the state’s approach to the twin crises of homelessness and mental health.

The first law, AB 531, seeks to create 11,150 mental health treatment beds and supportive housing units by placing Proposition 1, a $6.38 billion bond measure, on the March 2024 ballot for voters to decide. About $1 billion of that funding would be reserved for veterans.

The second law, SB 326, aims to modernize the Mental Health Services Act of 2004 by requiring that counties spend 30% of the act’s funding on housing.

The two bills strive to ensure all Californians can access high quality mental health resources, including direly needed residential treatment beds, as well as stable supportive homes in which to recover.

“Today marks a powerful and important milestone that we are moving beyond identifying issues, to a paradigm shift to begin the process of being accountable to solve them,” said Newsom.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who has made fighting homelessness her cornerstone issue, praised the new laws for recognizing the interdependent nature of being without a home and suffering from mental illness.

“We all know that we cannot address the unhoused population if we don’t address mental health and substance abuse at the same time,” she said. “I would ask everybody here, how they might deal with their mental health and substance abuse vulnerability if they were living in a tent for a month or a week.”

Not everyone is pleased by the new laws. A coalition of mental health advocates and supporters have declared their opposition to Prop. 1.

The group, Californians Against Proposition 1, fears that diverting Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) funding to housing will defund existing community mental health services and lead to competition over the remaining money.

“Financial support for a wide array of effective, voluntary, evidence-based, community-based, accessible, service options will be dramatically cut,” the coalition stated. “Also on the chopping block is one of the only funding sources for peer support and culturally responsive mental health services for racial and ethnic minority communities.”

Californians Against Proposition 1 coalition members are also upset by last-minute changes to the bond measure’s language that allow funding to be applied to locked treatment facilities.

“They might have achieved true consensus on this measure if they had not so crassly attacked the funding lifeline that so many programs depend on today or introduced forced treatment into the bill at the last minute,” stated the coalition. “Our community sees, hears and feels this as disrespect, and we fear for our bodily autonomy and freedom.”

Other mental health organizations praised the reforms to the Mental Health Services Act as well as the funding provided by the new legislation.

Jolissa Hebard, a representative for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, spoke of her personal experience with mental illness — having a veteran father with PTSD, a mother with depression, a sister with bipolar disorder and a son who is a suicide attempt survivor.

“The Mental Health Services Act provided so much growth and so much opportunity over the last 20 years,” she said. “Now we get to be part of the change that’s going to allow families, people with mental health conditions, legislators, public officials, to build a better system within California for our loved ones.”

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California state Senator Susan Eggman thanked families with loved ones experiencing mental illness played in developing these two bills.

“You lead the way the decades that you have spent searching for your loved ones in hospitals and emergency rooms on the streets … waiting for that phone call to know thank God they’re in jail or not being assaulted on the streets,” she said. “We all come to this with our own personal stories about the frustrations of knocking our heads against walls trying to get people we love help.”

L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis noted how the increased availability of treatment beds and supportive housing will play a key role in enabling the county’s implementation of Gov. Newsom’s CARE Court.

CARE Court seeks to leverage the court system to connect individuals with schizophrenia, bipolar challenges and other psychotic disorders with care instead of living on the streets or landing in jail cells.

“We are less than two months out from launching the Governor’s CARE Court initiative and finally having the tools we need to help people with schizophrenia and psychotic disorders that have been nearly impossible to help in the past,” she said. “The two bills that Governor Newsom will be signing today are essential to our success.

However, similar to Prop 1., some mental health and disability rights advocates have fears about compelled treatment under CARE Court. In particular they worry the court will impinge on people’s civil rights and disproportionately affect people of color, who make up the majority of the state’s unhoused population.

​ Orange County Register 

Chapman postpones ‘American Islamophobia’ author’s speech, symposium

• October 12, 2023

What’s the right thing to do when war rages and kids are dying half a world away?

Students at Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler Law School started planning a symposium back in the spring — an annual project of the student-run Diversity and Social Justice Forum, which seeks to avoid the echo chamber of ideas and provide a forum for a wide range of voices.

All this planning was to culminate on Thursday, Oct. 12, with a keynote speech on “Islamaphobia and Intersectionality in the Law in the United States” by Khaled Beydoun, a law professor at Arizona State University. Beydoun is also the author of “The New Crusades: Islamophobia and the Global War on Muslims” and “American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear.”

Last weekend, Hamas attacked Israel. Israel responded. “They want you to believe that: Arab = Muslim = Palestinian = Hamas,” Beydoun posted on X (formerly Twitter). “This enables the mass bigotry and racism we’re witnessing now. Orwell would be proud.”

Also: “Children dying on either side is abhorrent. It’s that simple.”

Officials at Chapman worried. Having Beydoun speak in the current climate could be seen as insensitive and could even be unsafe, students were told on Tuesday, Oct. 10. Beydoun’s speech would be dropped, but the event would move forward with panel discussions.

Some students were aghast. They mounted their best case to have the symposium continue as planned, with Beydoun. On Wednesday, Oct. 11, Fowler Law School Dean Paul Paton sent an email to students saying the entire symposium would be postponed until the spring, when the situation in the Middle East will have hopefully calmed down and Beydoun’s speech might be better received.

This outraged some students even more. It sends a troubling message that critical conversations and diverse perspectives can be set aside in the face of adversity, and that meaningful discourse is expendable in the face of challenging circumstances, one of them told us.

Yes, they understand the sensitivity of what’s unfolding in Israel and Gaza. But times like this are precisely when we need to have difficult conversations and consider different viewpoints, they said.

Chapman’s Paton said the decision was made after “extensive and thoughtful consultation.”

“As a community of law students, law professors and alumni committed to the rule of law, our members — whatever their political perspective — have been outraged and saddened by the violent attack by Hamas on Israel last weekend and its aftermath,” he wrote to the law students.

“We understand Professor Beydoun’s disappointment at the postponed opportunity to promote his work and the short notice of this decision. … We are deeply concerned about the significant potential for Professor Beydoun’s message and the related panel discussion not to be received appropriately; interpreted solely through a lens of current events; or worse, to be actively disrupted at this student-run, student-led event.”

Paton personally extended the offer to reschedule to Beydoun “at a time when there is a climate more favorable to civil discourse.”

“Our primary concern remains squarely on the physical and mental welfare and safety of our students, and want to ensure that the time, energy and effort of the Diversity and Social Justice Forum Symposium student leaders have put into organizing this academic symposium will be realized as the success they originally envisioned. Chapman remains committed to academic freedom and free speech and to student conduct policies, which stipulate that harassment, discrimination and the promotion of violence have no place in our community.”

It’s unclear if Beydoun will agree to come in the spring. His spokesman said he’s inundated with requests right now.

Meantime, Beydoun is passionately trying to counter the notion that all Gazans, all Palestinians, are terrorists. “There would be no Hamas without the occupation,” he posted. “There would be no ISIS without the illegal war in Iraq. Vile actors are born from even more vile acts and the contexts they sow.”

His voice certainly provides food for thought. What do you think? Did Chapman do the right thing?

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​ Orange County Register 

The cult of ‘forever low’ interest rates had to end sometime

• October 12, 2023

Countless financial soothsayers and Wall Street wizards were once members of a curious cult. Their doctrine? The unshakable belief that interest rates had managed to find something resembling the fabled Fountain of Youth, leaving their numbers eternally low and never rising. The “Forever Low” brigade dismissed those of us who argued that high government debt was unsustainable and, partly because low repayment rates would not last forever, we should control spending.

Now, let’s be clear. Predicting the economic future isn’t like reading the morning weather forecast. Nevertheless, the certainty of the Forever Low cult felt a bit like confidently asserting that winter would never come to Alaska because June was particularly warm. Interest rates have historically fluctuated due to various economic factors. Somehow, many believed that the unprecedented period of declining and low rates over the past few decades had become the new normal, never to change much.

Every time someone would suggest that rates might increase in the future, and thus recommend a turn toward more fiscal discipline today, the Forever Low club would raise their eyebrows, smirk, and summarily dismiss such heresy. “That’s quaint,” they might imply before proceeding to tell us how wrong we were to have predicted inflation and higher rates after the 2008 financial crisis.

True enough, I was one of those who didn’t understand that new Federal Reserve policy at the time meant that inflation would not, in fact, break out. I also didn’t see coming the next 15 years of super-low rates alongside growing government indebtedness and a money supply steadily inflated through what seemed like permanent quantitative easing.

Yet I never felt it was wise to bet on rates remaining low as a justification for going further into debt. After all, even low rates on a growing amount of debt mean larger and larger interest payments. That in turn would mean that more of our revenue would have to be devoted to interest rather than spending on government programs that people value.

In a way, the curious cult’s certainty was impressive. It’s not every day we witness such unwavering confidence in the face of rising red ink. It was even more stunning during the pandemic, when we saw the national debt rise by $5 trillion over a mere two years. That included $2 trillion in March 2021 with no call for future austerity, a time when the economy was already recovering and inflation was thus significant.

When inflation warnings became hard to ignore, the Forever Low gang retorted that it was silly to worry because, in the worst-case scenario, “the Fed has the tool to bring inflation down.” That tool amounts to hiking interest rates to slow down the economy — which seems in direct contradiction to the belief that debt accumulation was OK because, you know, interest rates would remain forever low.

But then, as fate (and economics) arranged matters, the winds shifted. Whispers started circulating about tangible changes on the horizon. The first signs were subtle, but soon the murmurs became louder. The once-dismissed possibility of rising rates is now a reality. With the yield on a 10-year Treasury yield above 4.5%, the new refrain is that we could ignore deficits in the past, but we can’t anymore.

Of course, this too is wrong. We should have never ignored deficits, which, along with spending and debt projections, were on an uphill trajectory that made us susceptible to a crisis if interest rates rose suddenly — especially since half of our debt has a maturing time of three years or less.

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Faced with higher rates, the Forever Low caucus has weakened. Yet it seems to have been replaced with a sense that these high rates are transitory and will inevitably fall back down. I predict they’ll be as transitory as inflation was supposed to be, which is to say longer than one thinks.

The inflation problem has been stubborn, and if the rising interest payments are paid with more borrowing as opposed to fiscal restraint, inflation will only worsen, triggering more interest hikes and more interest payments. That’s a vicious cycle that, short of some economic growth miracle driven by a wonderful innovation, can only be stopped with fiscal contraction.

In the end, the Forever Low believers were correct in their own transitory way. After all, interest rates did remain low for an extended period, catching many by surprise. Their main mistake, though, was tragic: concluding that there was no cost to trillions of dollars in additional debt.

Veronique de Rugy is the George Gibbs Chair in Political Economy and a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

​ Orange County Register 

Guantanamo Bay is a constitutional debacle

• October 12, 2023

When President George W. Bush formulated the concept of an American Devil’s Island in Cuba, he did so heedless of the damage to the Constitution his experiment in torture and confinement without end would bring about. Bush made the case that torture and confinement at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay would allow the government to do its job.

He boasted that the Constitution shouldn’t restrain him, federal laws wouldn’t apply, and federal judges couldn’t interfere.

He was, of course, wrong on all counts. The Supreme Court ruled on six Gitmo cases; and the government lost five. In the case in which the government prevailed, the court ruled that the detainee filed his complaint in the wrong city.

The five cases that the government lost established that federal courts do have jurisdiction over the place where the government goes for more than just a fleeting moment. The court knew that British kings would often have prisoners whom they wished to torture or detain without trial brought to foreign colonies for those purposes. The Framers of the Constitution abhorred that practice and wrote the Constitution so it wouldn’t happen here.

As a result of the five Supreme Court rulings, the basic rights that all persons have who are confined anywhere by the government must be recognized and honored at Gitmo. This is so because the detainees are persons and their rights are natural to humanity. It is also because those rights are spelled out in the Constitution, without distinction between good persons or bad persons, Americans or foreigners, persons in the U.S. or outside of it.

Stated differently, all human beings confined by the government have the right to due process, no matter where they are confined. This means they must be given notice of the charges against them, they have a right to remain silent, to the services of a lawyer, to confront the evidence against them, to call witnesses in their own behalf and to challenge the government’s evidence.

They have the right to a speedy trial with a professional judge and a neutral jury. And they have the right to appeal.

I offer this brief background in order to address the legal and constitutional debacle that Gitmo has become. In 21 years, at $100 million a year, only two trials have led to convictions by juries and seven have led to guilty pleas. Of those nine convictions (a guilty plea is a conviction), four have been overturned on appeal and two appeals are pending. Thirty detainees remain at Gitmo, 16 of whom have been cleared for release.

The principal remaining defendant is the alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Initially, the government claimed that Osama bin Laden was the 9/11 mastermind. But after it decided to kill bin Laden without any charges or due process, the government changed its mind and decided that KSM — as the government calls him — was the mastermind.

KSM was tortured at a CIA black site in Poland for three years. Thereafter, he was brought to Gitmo and interrogated without torture by FBI agents. They failed to give him his Miranda warnings about his right to remain silent, the consequences of waiving that right and the right to a loyal attorney at no cost to him. Nevertheless, KSM asked for a lawyer and the agents simply ignored him.

During the interrogation, KSM made some admissions about the 9/11 plot, but he did so fearful that he would soon be tortured again. This meant nothing to the FBI agents or the prosecutors in the case. But it is quite meaningful to federal judges. All evidence obtained under torture, or influenced by realistic fears of torture, or tainted in any way by torture, is inadmissible in any American court. Moreover, no statement from a defendant who has not been Mirandized may be used against him in court without an express written waiver.

The lead FBI agent who failed to Mirandize KSM and who ignored his request for an attorney is a 33-year veteran of the FBI who testified that he knew the Miranda procedures well and he knew that the failure to abide them could render KSM’s statements totally inadmissible. But he thought the warnings did not apply at Gitmo, even though the Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that the Miranda warnings do apply and KSM’s FBI interrogation was in 2007.

This is not brain surgery. It is criminal procedure 101.

Meanwhile, Abu Zubaydah, a Gitmo detainee arrested in Pakistan in 2002, is awaiting his release. After a year of CIA torture in Thailand, he was moved to Gitmo in 2003 and has been there since. He has not been charged with any crime or offense, and the government admits it has no evidence of wrongdoing on his part — not just insufficient evidence, but no evidence. However, he is known as the “forever prisoner” since the government claims he is too dangerous to release.

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The concept of a forever prisoner — uncharged, untried and unfree — is unprecedented, unknown and unheard of in the history of American law. Basic due process demands that he be charged and tried speedily or released.

Both KSM and Zubaydah were awaiting rulings from the fourth judge in their cases when that judge announced his retirement. Now a fifth judge will be assigned to both cases. His first job will be to read the files amassed by his four judicial predecessors — all 450,000 pages.

You can’t make this up.

The French prime minister Georges Clemenceau once remarked that “military justice is to justice as military music is to music.” But this is tragedy, not comedy. The defendants are human beings who have the same rights as anyone in America. If rights are lost because of government ineptitude or politics or willful blindness, they are not rights, but government giveaways. And then our rules-based system of rights and laws becomes a humanitarian and a constitutional fiasco.

To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.

​ Orange County Register 

Downtown Disney announces three more new restaurants

• October 12, 2023

Disney has announced a handful of new restaurants coming to its Downtown Disney area, including a Korean fast-casual eatery and a fried chicken sandwich joint. It’s all part of the theme park’s major renovation to its western parcel of land that connects Disney’s two major parks and three hotels.

First up, Seoul Sister will serve bowls based on bibimbap with a California twist. Executive Chef Kelly Kim will helm the menu, which, in addition to rice bowls with marinated meats and vegetables, will include a breakfast fare, drinks and more.

Amanda-Jane Thomas and Shanita Nicholas will bring their popular LA-based Sip and Sonder to Downtown Disney. The coffeehouse-slash-eatery was lauded by the Los Angeles Times as one of the best cafes in town. In addition to serving coffee and roasting their own beans, Sip and Sonder also prepares Caribbean-inspired fare. “We’ll be joining a team of incredible restaurateurs to create an amazing, diverse food and beverage experience, all in one new spot,” the duo wrote in an Instagram post announcing their upcoming Disney location. “We can’t wait to take you on a journey of JOY with us over the coming months.”

Making its West Coast debut, GG’s Chicken Shop, famous for its fowl, will also join the Downtown Disney edible brigade. Most notably, the Chicago-based restaurant offers a series of chicken sandwiches, ranging from fried to roasted. While its Disney menu has yet to be announced, say a little prayer for them to bring their chocolate dirt pudding and oatmeal cream pie to Anaheim.

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In addition to the new restaurants, Disney also announced on Monday, Oct. 9 a yet-to-be-named open-air bar that will offer classic cocktails, beers, wines, frozen lemonades, frozés, espresso martinis, spirit-free elixirs and more.

The newly announced dining options join a slew of other restaurants poised to open once construction finishes. Din Tai Fung, known for its soup dumplings and noodles, chef Carlos Gaytán’s Paseo and Céntrico, and California-Cuban cheese rolls and pastries purveyor Porto’s Bakery and Cafe are all slated to open in the newly revamped district.

Disney filed commercial construction permits filed with the Anaheim Planning and Building Department that suggest the new renovation will come with a 8,300-square-foot retail building with room for five shops and an event space with a 1,250-square-foot stage. While no official opening date has been announced yet for the restaurants or the renovated area, work is expected to be completed by late 2024.

​ Orange County Register 

LA and Sacramento: Which one handled Texas border migrants better?

• October 12, 2023

Aura Silva was among 36 migrants who in early June were driven from Texas’ border to New Mexico and then flown to Sacramento. She had no family there to take her in and no knowledge of how to find shelter. She had just learned about the capital city several days before, after crossing the U.S. border.

The Diocese of Sacramento and partner organizations stepped in to help, offering clothes and food to the 31-year-old Colombian mother and her fellow travelers. The next few days, the migrants slept at a synagogue before being placed in a hotel.

While grateful for that support, Silva soon began to feel frustrated because she couldn’t find a job. Without guidance on the convoluted U.S. asylum process, Silva didn’t know how to apply for a work permit, which can take six months or more to get.

After three months of waiting, Silva decided to leave Sacramento.

“A friend of mine told me I could find a job at a Mexican restaurant in Memphis. I thought about it for days until I left,” Silva said during a phone interview from the apartment she shares with three other migrants in Tennessee’s second largest city.

Migrants arrive at St. Anthony’s Croatian Catholic Church in Los Angeles on two buses traveling from Texas on Sept. 19, 2023. Photo by Lauren Justice for CalMatters

Silva and her fellow new arrivals in Sacramento found an under-resourced local support system, community leaders said. Some, like Silva, already are considering moving on to other destinations.

By contrast, other migrants are finding better support in Los Angeles. Since June, more than 900 migrants have arrived there, most on buses from Texas. Advocates say they are being quickly integrated into the L.A. community.

Texas ‘theatrics’ or California hospitality

Los Angeles has received millions of dollars from the state to help newly arrived migrants. Sacramento has received no such help from the state. State officials said that’s because of the significantly larger number of migrant arrivals in L.A. than in Sacramento.

Some lawmakers applaud California’s response.

IMMIGRANTS IN SACRAMENTO: He doesn’t know who flew him to Northern California. A year later, this migrant’s future is uncertain.

“While the governors of Florida and Texas have decided to play politics with human lives, our state has decided to take a compassionate approach towards individuals who are in need of care,” said Assembly member Wendy Carrillo, a Democrat from Los Angeles. “For me, it’s about coming together as a state to recognize the humanity of people, and treating them with dignity, rather than engaging in political theatrics.”

From left to right, Sheryl Paiz, 11, Dena Arenas, 31, Hanna Paiz, and Hember Paiz, 30, at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles on Sept. 19, 2023. Photo by Lauren Justice for CalMatters

A few days after Silva landed in Sacramento, Hember Paiz and Dena Arenas arrived in L.A.’s Union Station. They were part of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s plans to bus thousands of migrants to Democratic-led cities.

The Guatemalan couple received a paper listing local resources and phone numbers. They knew who to call for legal advice, for instance. A relative picked them up.

Three months later Paiz and Arenas were sitting in a downtown Los Angeles law office, ready to apply for a government work permit.

“The city is beautiful, honestly,” Paiz said in September. “We don’t yet have jobs to be able to become more independent.”

With help from the local nonprofit Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Paiz and Arenas applied for work permits, received health care coverage for their family through Medi-Cal and enrolled in the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.

No funds available

Aura Silva in the apartment she shares with three other migrants in Memphis on Oct. 2, 2023. Photo by Andrea Morales for CalMatters

Meanwhile in Sacramento, some community leaders were criticizing how California’s capital city responded to the arrival of the 36 migrants in June.

“What we saw in the experience of these particular migrants is that integration into this community has been slower,” said Jessie Tientcheu, CEO of Opening Doors, a resettlement organization in Sacramento.

“I think we need a more coordinated approach. And that is going to include both the city and the county governments, as well as the state, frankly.”

For 32 years the mission of Sacramento Area Congregations Together (ACT) has been to organize and work with the faith community to further social justice causes.  On June 2 the organization’s executive director, Gabby Trejo, received a phone call, informing her that a group of 16 migrants had been abruptly dropped off at the offices of the Sacramento diocese and needed immediate assistance.

“At the beginning this incident was considered a crisis, but it quickly escalated.”

Gabby Trejo, executive director for Sacramento Area Congregations Together

Though Sacramento ACT had never provided direct services in a situation like this, Trejo said, the organization decided to respond to what seemed to be a temporary emergency.

But it wasn’t temporary. Three days later, a second flight with 15 Latin American asylum seekers, including Silva, arrived in Sacramento similarly unprepared.

“At the beginning this incident was considered a crisis, but it quickly escalated,” Trejo said.

“We got a sense of how much the hotels cost per day, but we realized we would need help, so we pulled someone out of retirement to help us with folks going to  ER, dental appointments, and a lot of coordination. We normally don’t do that.”

Anticipating the logistical and economic challenges of helping a growing number of asylum seekers in Sacramento, Trejo sent a funding request to Sacramento County on July 12, more than a month after the migrants’ unexpected arrivals.

Trejo asked for nearly $194,000, to cover 17 hotel rooms for four months and to pay the salaries of a case manager and staff. Trejo said at first Sacramento County officials said they would explore available resources to assist the migrants, though spending the funds would require approval by the county Board of Supervisors.

Sacramento County ultimately did not release the money, saying in a written statement that officials had not identified funds they could allocate for the immigrants.

Fears of sleeping on streets

As Sacramento ACT waited for an official answer from Sacramento County, Silva feared having to sleep on the streets again.

She’d experienced homelessness during her journey to the United States, she said. She had walked across mountains in the notorious Darién Gap rainforest in Panama and traversed several  Central American countries to reach Mexico. She settled in Ciudad Juárez, near the U.S. border, for about a month.

In May Silva surrendered to U.S. border officials in El Paso, Texas. Once Silva was released and placed into a shelter two men approached her, promising her housing and a job in California. Feeling hopeful, she accepted the ticket on a chartered flight, which was later revealed to have been paid for by Florida’s migrant relocation program.

“I think we need a more coordinated approach. And that is going to include both the city and the county governments, as well as the state, frankly.”

Jessie Tientcheu, CEO of Opening Doors

Silva thought Sacramento might be where she could start over and, little by little, fulfill the promise she had made to the 15-year-old daughter she left back in Colombia: to make enough money to help her daughter continue and improve on her education.

Some time before Sacramento County rejected Trejo’s funding request, the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz)  announced the state’s first Local Immigrant Integration and Inclusion Grants, more than $6 million going to 12 local governments across California.

Sacramento County was awarded $910,210 to “establish an interagency task force to promote cross-jurisdictional coordination to create a rapid response plan and system of care for newly arriving migrants,” according to the state agency. But the county would not be able to disburse the funds until January.

Like Silva, some asylum seekers have left Sacramento. Ones who stayed were told Sacramento ACT could no longer help them financially.

State aid for Los Angeles

Migrants arrive at St. Anthony’s Croatian Catholic Church in Los Angeles on two buses traveling from Texas on Sept. 19, 2023. Photo by Lauren Justice for CalMatters

California officials began planning last spring for a potential increase in migrant arrivals linked to the impending end of Title 42, a federal emergency health rule that had allowed border officials to turn away migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

From April 2021 to September 30, 2023, the state helped more than 472,000 migrants who were processed and released at the border, said Scott Murray, a social services department spokesperson. That includes more than 98,000 who came to the state since Title 42 ended on May 12.

The state’s preparation included a $1.3 million contract with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, the lead organization of the L.A. Welcomes Collective of nonprofits.  Officials allowed that contract to stay in place, to provide humanitarian aid for migrants arriving to the L.A. area from Texas, Murray said. It expires in December.

“We have to be responsive to these major emergencies, sometimes not created from a natural flow of migration but by the politics in the nation.”

Angelica Salas, director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights

As part of the state’s 2023 budget, the L.A. County government also received $2 million from the state’s social services department, to work with nonprofits providing aid to newly arriving migrants.

Lyndsay Toczylowski, executive director at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said her firm is providing legal guidance and support to migrants seeking asylum.  The L.A. Welcomes Collective organizations also work with each other and with state and local officials to provide services to arriving migrants. That includes medical attention and a warm meal at arrival, and legal services and transportation to new destinations if migrants choose to leave L.A., said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesperson for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, more commonly known as CHIRLA.

This is nothing new for the organization, said Executive Director Angelica Salas. “We feel like this is the nature of the work we do, which is that we have to be responsive to these major emergencies, sometimes not created from a natural flow of migration but by the politics in the nation.”

A family’s flight

Since June, Texas has sent dozens of buses of migrants to Los Angeles. The City Council in August voted to investigate whether human trafficking, kidnapping, or any other crime was committed when the first bus arrived from Texas on June 14.

Sheryl Paiz, 11, holds her baby sister Hanna at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles on Sept. 19, 2023. She and her family immigrated to the United States from Guatemala in June 2023. Photo by Lauren Justice for CalMatters

Paiz, Arenas and their two daughters were on one of those buses. The Guatemalan family had escaped gang violence in their hometown, they said, then endured a long journey hoping for a more stable life.

“The gang activity was growing and we were getting threats; we were being extorted and abused,” Paiz said. “It was a difficult situation. More than anything, that’s why I needed to look for some security and protection for my family.”

Paiz, 30, had been a propane gas salesman, and his daily routine involved driving a truck through various neighborhoods. Gang violence was growing in Guatemala, Paiz said, and gang members harassed him on his work routes. They stole money and, when he stopped carrying cash, they stole tanks of gas, which his employer deducted from his earnings, he said.

In early 2023, two gang members approached him at work with a proposition, Paiz said: Would he join the gang as an informant? They asked that he give them information about his clients and in exchange, gang members would leave him alone and supplement his earnings.

Paiz said no and the gang assaulted him.  He arrived home that day with his nose and mouth bloodied and his chest covered in bruises. Soon after the family left Guatemala and made the journey to the U.S.-Mexico border by car, bus and foot.

Claiming asylum

By the time Paiz, Arenas and their oldest daughter made it to the U.S.-Mexico border, Arenas, 31, was near the end of her pregnancy. Hanna was born in April in Tamaulipas, Mexico where they waited two months before crossing the border to Laredo, Texas.

There they claimed asylum, saying they had fled violence in Guatemala. The family was transported to a Laredo church where they waited two weeks for the  bus that would take them to Los Angeles.

Migrants camp near the border as they try to cross into the U.S. in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico on June 27, 2023. Photo by Daniel Becerril, Reuters

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Hanna, barely a month old, cried the whole way. She had wanted warm milk but there was no way to heat up her formula on the bus, Arenas said.

The only consolation, Arenas said, was the view out the window of a beautiful  new country she had never seen before, as the bus made its way through the Arizona desert.

Three months later the family sat in a Los Angeles legal office. Arenas bounced Hanna on her lap as the infant babbled. Occasionally croons would begin to turn into cries, and Arenas would stand and rock Hanna to quiet her. Arenas handed Hanna to 11-year-old Sheryl, who rubbed noses with her baby sister.

Paiz said the family is living in central Los Angeles with his uncle, and he’s looking for jobs while he waits for his permit.

“We want stability, emotionally and economically,” Paiz said. “My family wants to have a home free of everything we went through in Guatemala. To forget about all of that and build a new home.”

A promise to keep

In total, California has spent more than $1.3 billion since 2019, to assist the federal government in providing humanitarian services and help for newly arriving migrants, said Murray, of the California Department of  Social Services. The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights’ contract is part of that investment.

California does not have a contract with Sacramento ACT, or any other organization in Sacramento, for providing services to migrants sent there, Murray said.

Because Sacramento ACT couldn’t provide long-term assistance to asylum seekers, at least two other organizations stepped in.  NorCal Resist has daily supplied food and basic necessities and Opening Doors, which has worked with Afghan and Ukrainian refugees, will pay for housing the asylum seekers for six months.

Tientcheu, of Opening Doors, said welcoming migrants is a good investment for the city and county of Sacramento — and for the state.

“Immigrants and refugees are incredibly entrepreneurial,” she said. “Over time, they pay more in taxes than they use in public benefits.”

Aura Silva in the apartment she shares with three other migrants in Memphis on Oct. 2, 2023. Photo by Andrea Morales for CalMatters

Days before Silva left Sacramento, she was able to start working on her declaration for asylum application, detailing her experiences in Colombia and her reasons for fleeing and fearing going back. But Silva wasn’t able to file her asylum application while in Sacramento, she said, because she wasn’t given proper information about the asylum process.

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In her paperwork, Silva recounted that her former partner, a police officer in Colombia, psychically abused her. Before she could report it to authorities, he threatened to kill her, she said.

Now, seven months after she fled Colombia, Silva works as a waitress in Memphis. Her tips are best on weekends, she said, though her earnings aren’t enough to pay for her own apartment.

Still, Silva is able to send money to Colombia, to build a better future for her daughter.

“I didn’t want to leave Sacramento. I loved it,” Silva said. “But I came to this country to work and give my daughter a better education. That was a promise I will keep.”

​ Orange County Register