Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier this month signed a invoice that ensures undocumented California residents can entry a state program that gives discounted dwelling and mobile phone providers — and protects their info.
These updates to the California Lifeline Program have gotten the eye of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who has requested the Trump administration to analyze whether or not it “undermines federal regulation, encourages illegal entry and misuses taxpayer {dollars}.”
California Lifeline supplies discounted dwelling or mobile phone providers to eligible households. Eligibility is decided primarily based on a family’s complete annual gross revenue or enrollment in different public help applications, together with Medi-Cal, Part 8 housing, SNAP, WIC and extra. Households have to decide on both dwelling or mobile phone providers, not each.
The appliance type requested for a Social Safety quantity, which brought on confusion about whether or not households with undocumented residents may apply, mentioned Assemblymember Avelino Valencia, an Anaheim Democrat who spearheaded the adjustments within the state legislature.
In keeping with a invoice evaluation, the federal Lifeline program started requiring Social Safety numbers in 2012, and California’s program additionally started to gather them at the moment “to maximise the federal help accessible to California subscribers.”
Valencia’s invoice, which handed alongside social gathering strains earlier than Newsom signed it in early October, specified {that a} Social Safety quantity will not be required to use for this system.
And it additionally explicitly prohibits the California Public Utilities Fee, which administers this system, from sharing candidates’ info with different authorities entities with out a courtroom subpoena or warrant.
The concept, supporters mentioned, is to guard undocumented residents’ info from being shared with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or different federal immigration authorities amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
The updates to this system “will assist improve participation for eligible undocumented Californians and ensures they will entry important communication providers with out concern of pointless authorities overreach,” Valencia mentioned.
However Cruz, a former Republican presidential contender, alleged in a letter to U.S. Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi that the adjustments “possible violates federal regulation.” He known as it “the newest in a sequence of measures by Democrat-run jurisdictions that not solely incentivize unlawful entry into america but additionally impede the lawful operations of federal immigration authorities.”
Cruz requested Bondi and Federal Communications Fee Chairman Brendan Carr to analyze and “make sure the California regulation complies with federal regulation to be able to restore transparency and guarantee taxpayer {dollars} will not be misused to subsidize and encourage unlawful immigration,” in keeping with a information launch.
California Lifeline is funded by a surcharge billed and picked up by telecommunications carriers.
Cruz, in his letter to Bondi, requested for her to overview the invoice “and take all actions essential to uphold our nation’s immigration legal guidelines.”
And he requested Carr to supply “an evaluation of whether or not state-level telecommunication applications that give advantages to unlawful aliens are duplicative of federal advantages and may subsequently end in these federal advantages being diminished or eradicated.”
A spokesperson for the Justice Division confirmed receipt of Cruz’s letter however declined to remark additional.
Representatives for the FCC couldn’t instantly be reached for remark. Each workplaces famous that communications with the media are restricted through the ongoing federal authorities shutdown.
In response to Cruz’s letters to Trump administration officers, Valencia mentioned the updates to California’s program don’t impression the separate, federal Lifeline Program.
“California’s Lifeline Program has existed for many years to assist low-income residents, together with seniors, college students and dealing households, afford primary cellphone service,” Valencia mentioned. “It’s a communications security web, not a giveaway.”
“The regulation doesn’t depend on state taxpayer {dollars} and ensures that low-income residents, together with survivors of home violence, can entry important cellphone service,” Valencia continued, including that his invoice “additionally reiterates basic authorized ideas requiring state entities to acquire a warrant earlier than releasing non-public buyer information to any regulation enforcement company.”
“Entry to communication will not be a partisan situation. It’s a public security situation, an training situation and an financial situation,” he mentioned. “Individuals want to have the ability to name 911 and attain crucial providers no matter shifting federal immigration guidelines.”
In the meantime, Newsom’s workplace mentioned the invoice is simply normal observe to guard individuals’s info from inappropriate disclosure.
“This invoice is a part of California’s nation-leading efforts to guard people’ private info,” mentioned Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson for Newsom. “We are going to proceed to struggle for privateness and shopper protections to make sure private info will not be misused by any group or towards any particular person.”
A invoice evaluation famous California is ready to set up its personal guidelines for the state program that differ from the federal program, albeit California will not be capable of change federal eligibility necessities set by the FCC for the federal program.
It additionally famous that federal Lifeline subsidies account for $100 million to $150 million yearly for California subscribers. “To the extent that this invoice permits a bigger variety of Californians to enroll in and renew participation in Lifeline with out (Social Safety numbers), this invoice might improve the state’s reliance on state-level ratepayer revenues to cowl any misplaced federal subsidies,” it mentioned.
Of notice, the Orange County registrar of voters can be at odds with the federal authorities over the sharing of individuals’s private info.
The Justice Division sued Registrar of Voters Bob Web page in June for allegedly not offering full data associated to the elimination of non-citizens from voter registration lists.
Web page, county attorneys mentioned, would have violated state and federal regulation if he had turned over delicate private info of voter registrants with out a subpoena or courtroom order. Correspondence between representatives for the Justice Division and authorized counsel for the registrar’s workplace confirmed there was an effort made by the registrar to supply the “delicate info,” simply in a way that would come with “assurances that such delicate private identifiers will stay confidential and be used for presidency functions solely.”
The lawsuit is ongoing.
