The Los Angeles Times reports that:
The nonprofit Center for American Liberty filed an emergency petition with the California Supreme Court requesting a stay on the governor’s action, arguing state and federal laws bar unemployment benefits to those without legal status and that providing the money to nonprofit groups represents an improper gift of taxpayer funds.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Whittier City Councilwoman Jessica Martinez and Ricardo Benitez, an immigrant from El Salvador who is now a U.S. citizen. Both plaintiffs are Republican candidates for the state Assembly. Benitez is running to represent the 39th Assembly District in the San Fernando Valley and Martinez is vying to represent the 57th Assembly District in the southern San Gabriel Valley.
“This is taxpayer money that may only be appropriated by the legislative branch. This is not a slush fund for the governor to spend as he sees fit,” Harmeet K. Dhillon, a San Francisco attorney and chief executive officer for the Center for American Liberty, said in a written statement Thursday. “At a time when law-abiding Californians are crushed by unemployment, housing issues, business closures and massive limitations on our normal lives, Governor Newsom is doing an end-run around the legal guardrails in place.”
The thing that is wrong with this aid is that it is insufficient. The fact is that, if these people are living in distress, we all live in distress.
If they get ill, our beloved “legal citizens and immigrants” will get ill as well.
People live here without legal status because of deficiencies in the immigration system.
Not because of choice.
These far right organizations — who have no sense of empathy, compassion, understanding care, let alone common sense — completely ignore the fact that the corporate capitalist system depends upon these people, who pay taxes, and we need to extend human decency to them and to maintain them during this crisis.
Because we need them!