That’s how the Guardian describes the rush by illegal immigrants to get in line for California’s handout of taxpayer dollars to them.
Last month, California made headlines when it announced a first-in-the-nation plan to create a $125m coronavirus relief fund for undocumented workers. But its rollout got off to a chaotic start this week, with thousands of calls flooding phone lines, creating huge delays, and so many visitors to the official website that it crashed for hours.
Adding to already overwhelmed telephone systems, the state issued last-minute directives that said callers needed to reach a live person in order to apply for aid.
Nonprofits across the state selected to distribute the money reported huge demand as people rushed to secure a spot for the first-come, first-served program.
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, or Chirla, one of 12 nonprofits tapped by the state to distribute the funds, received more than 1.1m phone calls on day one of the program – 630,000 calls just within the first 90 minutes of opening the hotline.
“We knew the number of applicants would be high, but we were just overwhelmed,” Chirla’s executive director told the New York Times.
Lucas Zucker, the policy and communications director for a nonprofit north-west of Los Angeles that advocates for social and environmental justice, wrote on Twitter that the program’s rocky rollout was predictable.
“Websites and phone lines across the state crashed. Our team saw so much frustration, anger and sadness from folks just trying to feed their kids. The need here is way too large to be met with a one-time disaster relief fund. We’re putting a Band-Aid on an open chest wound,” wrote Zucker.
. . .
Undocumented immigrants make up an estimated 10% of the state’s workforce … [there are an] estimated 2 million undocumented immigrants living in California.
There’s more at the link.
Note the last paragraph cited above. I daresay the sheer volume of calls demanding a share of that money gives the lie to the 2 million estimate. (My law enforcement contacts in California privately estimate the number of illegal aliens there to be at least 5 million, possibly more. They base that on their experience of traffic stops, criminal investigations, and so on. I believe them.)
Of course, the state of California should not be rewarding illegal aliens for their presence with taxpayer dollars. That’s flatly insane, and can do nothing except encourage further illegal entry (which is probably the point, given the nature and policies of that state’s government). However, this stampede for assistance highlights the economic plight of the marginally employed. We’ve already seen that many are apparently returning to Mexico under the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. They have no jobs there, and Mexico has few (if any) social assistance or entitlement programs to help them. Those who remain in this country aren’t eligible for the federal government’s assistance or stimulus package, yet are also at risk of losing their jobs not just temporarily, but in the long term, as the economy contracts. To say that they’re becoming desperate is to put it mildly.
What does this forbode for social stability? I don’t think it’s anything good. I expect demonstrations, even riots, in California as the illegals demand more sustenance to which they’re not legally entitled (at least, not under federal law). I expect California’s government to cave in to their demands, and expend more taxpayer funds on them. That, in turn, will arouse resentment and anger among taxpayers, who see their money being wasted on those who have no right to it. I don’t think that’s going to end well.
Will this have an impact on the November 2020 elections in that state? Is the special election there earlier this month an early “canary in a coal mine” for a sea change in California politics? Who knows? We can but hope . . .
Peter
One might think that citizens. U.S., living in California would take the hint that ESLEWHERE is a more suitable state to live in than California, although Oregon and Washington also have crazed Democrat governors.
I wonder how many California citizens are calling these hotlines hoping to receive some assistance. That's what I would do if I lived in CA. "My name is Tito Jimenez, but make the check out to Troy Jones– that's the fake name the bank knows me by. What's that you say, documentation? I don't need no stinking documentation. I'm undocumented; I swear!"
Also, what's to stop people from enrolling with more than one of these nonprofits in order to double, triple, quadruple dip? Or even just signing up more than once with the same nonprofit? The downside– from the government's perspective– of not requiring people to have any form of documentation or identification is that you can't check on that kind of thing. And I doubt there's a single bureaucrat in Sacramento who even considered these scenarios.
The federal government should completely cut off all funds to California. When the state runs out of money, maybe the illegals will go back to their own countries.Or starve. I don't care which. U.S. taxpayers shouldn't support them. GTFO !
Well, the local citizenry brought this on themselves when they elected and re-elected everyone of those Communist/Socialist. California has done recall election before; why not now? A little tar-n-feathering wouldn't hurt any either.
End state Cloward Piven.
California keeps telling us that if they were an independent country, they would be the fifth largest economy in the world. Let them secede, a country that rich should be able to support themselves without help from Wasjington.
Ok, I agree that handouts to illegal immigrants are wrong, but I see you making a mistake here that I see the Left making all the time.
The ‘Pro-Choice’ crowd apparently can’t wrap their heads around the idea that Pro-Life people believe hat every fetus is a human being, so they come up with elaborate explanations for why the Pro-Life people oppose abortion, all of them wrong, and make lots of tactical mistake as a consequence.
The Progressive Left believe in open borders and trans-nationalism. Those are stupid beliefs that could only work in a world without evil or fundamental cultural differences, but they DO believe them. Hand-outs for Illegals follow naturally from those beliefs.
I only bring this up because I firmly believe that to defeat the Progressives (and we’d bloody well better) we need to understand them.
@Judy,
Own your end of the stick: the local citizenry didn't keep sending politicians to D.C. for 50 years that turned a blind eye to this, and ensured CA would be packed with illegals. Presidents and congressmen elected by all y'all did this; we didn't start voting for it here until enough decent people left to swing the state hard-over to one-party communist rule. We voted in Prop 187 to deny exactly this sort of thing from ever happening, but a Jimmy Carter federal judge, IIRC, overturned that mandate on a whim.
And Peter, best guess is it's closer to 10M illegals here than just 5M. That'd be about 1 person in 4. It's certainly more than 5M. But the best thing for them is crashing this state's economy. They self-deport, whereas offering them bribes to stay just gets us more of them. Almost like Adam Smith and capitalism had the right of it back in 1776.
And if you demoralize DemoCommunists, and strip them of their illegal alien voter base enough to flip the state, or turn a large part of it back to mainstream red-state (like we used to be until about 1990), it would be a very good thing.
Even better would be total insolvency and bankruptcy, and having the state revert back to territorial status, and forcing them to start all over again to get re-admitted. Starting with building a wall, and deporting all the illegals. Win-win.
Urge your reps not to send CA any money for anything, until they rejoin the republic, one way or another.
It's the only way they'll ever learn.
I urge California to secede, so we could declare war on the place. Then we could give it a full and proper Sherman treatment.
Perhaps we could get the Mormons to make over the desert into a paradise afterward. It's been done before, after all.
How are these funds disbursed? Wasn't it not too long ago that the commies had said that the illegals couldn't have bank accounts – that they were so persecuted.
I'm in CA. I have seen how an illegal will be arrested and deported. And be back in three days with new ID. It is not fanciful speculation to say many illegals will have multiple names all with genuine looking fake ID.
I would do as Troy says except that I don't fancy the idea of associating with them just for a few shekels. But my motive would be to further bankrupting the state.
I am decidedly against ceding any lands to the commies. Go down that road and don't be surprised when it comes to your once free state. The fight is here and here is where it must be fought. Your support is appreciated.
Rick
Troy Jones.
RE: the last part of your comment.
Whether they have thought of these things is irrelevant. All they care about is that they gave monies to illegals. By giving benefits to the illegals they are then to confirm their bonafides to the commie party and the useful idiots.
I would dare to go further to say that by playing so loose with taxpayer's monies they have signaled that they are open for business for any Tomas, Deng, and Huraldo who wants something for nothing.
Rick