Between a violent immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, regime change in Venezuela and now the invasion of Iran, it would be easy to forget about last summer’s H.R.1, or the One Big Beautiful Bill as coined by President Donald Trump.
Some of those changes are just hitting now, almost a year later, with more still to come.
Starting April 1, the majority of legal immigrants no longer qualify for CalFresh, the state’s food nutrition program. It’s part of Trump’s ongoing efforts to reduce immigration, legal or illegal, by causing friction for noncitizens, whether by limiting medical, food and income support or stripping them of legal status. Even the Small Business Administration has stopped issuing loans to immigrants.
CalFresh eligibility
A slide from Live Well San Diego’s presentation on CalFresh and Medi-Cal eligibility changes. (Screenshot courtesy County of San Diego)The new CalFresh eligibility rules disqualify refugees, asylees and other immigrants temporarily allowed in the country for humanitarian reasons, like Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion.
The changes are troubling for the people whose work is devoted to helping those in need, service providers who find their worries growing exponentially with each cut.
El Cajon-based refugee advocate Afrah Abdulkader says the clients she serves are struggling to understand why they no longer qualify for food assistance.
“We’re talking about cultures and individuals who went through trauma and challenge,” she said. They are trying to figure out why they are being excluded, she added, even though the reason they are here is because of conflicts in their home regions. Already facing so much loss and strain, they ask Abdulkader “so why are we denied food?”
San Diego County has been tracking the changes and estimates that 13,000 CalFresh participants will lose eligibility. An additional 93,500 are at risk of losing their benefits starting June 1 due to new work requirements.
La Mesa Collaborative responds
Inside La Mesa First UMC’s meeting room, where the La Mesa Collaborative discussed solutions to CalFresh eligibility changes. (Photo by Drew Sitton/Times of San Diego)On Wednesday, the day the changes started, two dozen people gathered at La Mesa First United Methodist Church to brainstorm ideas on how to cope with the new limits at CalFresh. They represented schools, churches, nonprofits, assistance agencies, task forces and grassroots organizations that work in La Mesa and East County.
The two largest food assistance agencies in the region, San Diego Food Bank and Feeding San Diego, sent representatives to explain how they are responding.
“We, as a food bank, knew this was coming. We prepared. We’re working on ramping up a lot of our purchasing, getting more food out to partners and new partners as well,” said Amy Eilts of San Diego Food Bank. Yet she conceded, “we all know that’s a Band-Aid.”
Unlike the government shutdown last year where people immediately lost SNAP benefits, this is a “slow downward spiral,” Eilts said, as more and more participants are kicked out of the program when they are up for re-enrollment. That trend will accelerate in June when new work requirements, for able-bodied people under 64 without dependents younger than 14, take effect.
Medi-Cal, the state program for federal Medicare health benefits, is experiencing similar attrition as eligibility gets tighter and tighter.
An impactful slide
A slide from Live Well San Diego’s presentation on CalFresh eligibility changes. (Screenshot courtesy County of San Diego)Throughout the meeting, the major issue, that every agency has limited and sometimes even dwindling resources, hung over the group, but much of what troubled the service providers most could be summarized in one slide.
Bonnie Baranoff, who leads the La Mesa Collaborative, said the slide, which lists all the groups that have lost eligibility, stunned the audience at a county Live Well San Diego meeting. It did on Wednesday as well.
In the center, the slide lists victims of trafficking. Next to it, are battered noncitizens, meaning people who have been abused by a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, typically a spouse or parent.
Below that are specific groups offered temporary legal status in the U.S., like Afghan nationals granted parole between July 31, 2021 and Sept. 30, 2023. Those dates line up with the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, when many Afghans who assisted troops during the U.S.’s 20-year occupation fled the country in fear of the Taliban. The slide also cites immigrants from Ukraine who left due to Russia’s invasion.
Churches mobilize
And while they proposed practical solutions on how to remain nimble and not duplicate efforts, those in attendance at the church sometimes got emotional. Some shared that they couldn’t sleep. Their anger and fear showed.
“I never dreamed I would be this mad,” said Rebecca Branstetter, coordinator of the East County Homeless Task Force.
The devoutly religious women in the room, a few of whom run food distributions out of their churches, also expressed their moral outrage.
“That’s cruel that a person who’s been trafficked can’t get food,” said Lois Knowlton, of First United Methodist Church La Mesa.
Susan Naslund, of Good Shepherd Ministry Center in El Cajon, pledged to organize a letter-writing campaign to advocate at the state and federal levels for food assistance to resume.
Delivery needed?
Volunteers for ProduceGood at Heaven’s Windows food pantry in Spring Valley. (Photo courtesy ProduceGood)New needs emerged as well during Wednesday’s discussion.
Mackenzie Anderson of ProduceGood, which collects excess fruits and vegetables and distributes them throughout San Diego, shared that more mutual aid groups are asking for produce. These grassroots groups are increasing food sharing to immigrants as trust in institutions, even large food banks, dwindles.
The Table United Church of Christ in La Mesa recently contacted Good Shepherd about how some immigrants, fearing ICE, do not leave their homes, so they cannot attend food distributions. The church wanted to know how to bring them food directly.
“We said, ‘Yeah, we don’t know how to do that,’” Naslund shared. They have made a few deliveries since, but logistics to identify and contact families remain a challenge. “It’s difficult, but we’re trying.”
Sam Duke of Feeding San Diego says his organization’s focus is on getting enough edible food to partners, but those partners can shape their own delivery programs.
Craig Lewis, a graduate student, responded that the conversation ultimately is about how these local groups can fill in the gap overnight so everyone, even those in hiding, can be helped.
“One of the main points of basically sitting here is how can we reach all these communities as a community? Because the government’s not going to be doing it right now.”
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