Nearly half of undocumented immigrants in California are food insecure, often being forced to skip meals or rely on food banks each month. That’s because they remain excluded from vital state nutrition programs like CalFresh and the California Food Assistance Program
The food assistance program offers support to some immigrants with legal status who are barred from CalFresh. The program was supposed to be expanded to include anyone 55 or older, regardless of immigration status later this year. However, that was delayed to October 2027 during last year’s May Revision of the state budget.
On top of that, Newsom tacked on a “trigger-on” clause in this year’s May revision requiring the Department of Finance to ensure sufficient funds are available before benefits can begin. That’s because of concerns about California’s $12 billion budget deficit.
Jackie Mendelson, a policy advocate with Nourish California who co-leads the Food4All Campaign that pushed for this expansion, is worried about this.
“In Spring 2027, the Department of Finance within the administration will determine if there are enough funds in the general fund for the program expansion to go live,” she explained. “If there are, then the program will be ‘triggered on’ and continue as planned. What’s unclear is what happens if there are not enough funds.”
Mendelson explained that the program was created in 1996 following welfare reform that saw immigrants lose access to food stamps. However, the program still excludes some based on their immigration status, including undocumented immigrants.
“Our long-term goal is to remove immigration status as a barrier to accessing food assistance,” she said.
The program currently serves roughly 55,000, according to Mendelson. The delayed expansion is expected to add somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000 immigrants 55 or older who qualify based on income.
“We are calling on the legislature to reject the ‘trigger on’ and we also are calling on them to reject any additional mechanism or additional language to the existing statute that could introduce delays of any other kind,” she added.
Mendelson argued that California made a promise to immigrant communities that it is a “safe place regardless of where people are born.”
“Introducing additional cuts [is] putting the burden of the budget crisis on immigrant communities,” she added. “It breaks the trust that California has built with these communities. I think there will be a lot of trust that will need to be rebuilt if these cuts do go through in the final budget.”
She warned that small nonprofits addressing food insecurity will largely be impacted by this as well as they face possible federal and state funding cuts.
“If the ‘trigger-on’ were to be passed and in spring 2027 they decided to indefinitely pause this program, these organizations, especially with the cuts they’re facing that are possible at the federal level, with less funding, would need to be feeding even more people,” she emphasized.
Meals on Wheels
Joy Cohan is the executive director of Meals on Wheels Yolo County. Last year, Yolo County was ranked as one of the most food-insecure counties in the state with roughly 29% of households facing food insecurity. A fifth of households with seniors in the county are also food insecure.
That makes her job critical in addressing the growing senior population, which she described as a “silver tsunami.”
“Particularly as that baby boomer population ages, their need for support from Meals on Wheels gets bigger and bigger,” she explained. “Trying to find a way to address this is super urgent because we have this growing tsunami of seniors who need food assistance.”
When she learned about the delay to the food assistance program, Cohan said she was disappointed because they’re already resource-constrained.
“It just adds insult to injury and it’s going to be very hard for us to take on any more people in this circumstance,” she said.
Cohan is also concerned about losing the funding her organization receives from the Older Americans Act, which is currently at risk of being eliminated by the Trump Administration.
“That would be a 15% hit to our annual budget, and that’s a budget we already ran this year and so far we’re projecting will run at a deficit next year,” she said. “We can only do so much of that before we would have to start removing seniors from the programs, which is, of course, the last thing we want to do.”
The nonprofit currently serves roughly 1,000 seniors in Yolo County. That’s up from 380 only three years ago. A large part of why they were able to do that was because of American Rescue Plan Funds they were able to secure during the pandemic. But those funds ran out last year.
Since then, Cohan said they’ve been trying to diversify their revenue streams to backfill those missing dollars and sustain their growth.
“We have been working on extending our private philanthropy to extend the gap,” she said. “We’ve been working on developing what we call reimbursement revenue relationships with other nonprofits, namely other senior nutrition programs that need meals to execute upon their own missions.”
Cohan said what her organization needs most right now are donations and more volunteers.
“Volunteer time becomes increasingly more important to us in this fiscal environment,” she noted. “While we’ve had volunteers delivering most of our meals for at least a decade or more, the ability for volunteers to have impact in other ways to actually be working in our kitchens, for instance. I think that’s something we’re trying to develop more.”
Advocates push back
Masih Fouladi is the executive director for the California Immigrant Policy Center, a statewide advocacy organization pushing for the empowerment of immigrants.
Fouladi said budget cuts to food security and health programs that help immigrants are “discriminatory,” noting that nearly a third of California workers are immigrants.
“For immigrants to then be targeted through the Medi-Cal cuts or this ‘trigger-on’ language related to the California Food Assistance Program is outrageous for us, especially at a time when the federal government is unfairly and viciously attacking American communities,” he said.
On top of calling on the administration and legislature to reject the ‘trigger on’ language and cuts to vital programs, he called on them to find ways to create revenue to offset some of the losses. One way he suggested doing this is by cracking down on large corporations that are intentionally preventing employees from having access to health benefits through their employment.
“Government is essentially subsidizing large corporations and their greed in not wanting to provide full-time employment for folks so they don’t have to pay for healthcare,” he stressed. “As a result of that, we have the state paying for Medi-Cal for those individuals and driving up the cost.”
Fouladi is referring to the Affordable Care Act, which states that employers are not required to offer health coverage to part-time or seasonal workers.
“We have until June 15 to advocate,” he said, referring to when the budget needs to be finalized. “We need impacted community members to bring that voice and their stories to Sacramento at this time more than ever.”
Sacramento resources
The Sacramento Department of Human Assistance helps residents in need by providing public benefits, employment assistance and supportive services. It conducts outreach to immigrants to educate them on the availability of assistance programs and helps them apply.
“The department provides free interpretation for any customer whose primary language is not English,” staff stated in an email. “Immigrants without a legal status currently are not eligible to programs like these and would find it difficult to be eligible to the programs.”
The department noted that legal immigrants and citizens can apply for assistance programs online, over the phone, in person, by mail or by fax.
Department staff encouraged all immigrants and low-income individuals experiencing food insecurity to utilize local food banks to meet their food needs. The Sacramento Food Bank created this online tool to help people find food distribution sites near them.
Gerardo Zavala is the communities reporter at CapRadio. CapRadio is a partner of The Intersection and CVJC.