California Leaders Pledge $30M For Young Immigrants
SACRAMENTO (AP) - California Gov. Jerry Brown and top lawmakers announced Tuesday that they plan to spend $30 million helping young immigrants with legal services and college financial aid.
The announcement comes in response to President Donald Trump's decision to end a program that gives temporary protection from deportation to people brought to the country illegally as children or by parents who overstayed visas. The proposal requires legislative approval this week before lawmakers head home for the year.
Twenty million would go toward legal services for participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program. Another $10 million would go toward financial aid for participants in the program, with $7 million for community college students, $2 million for California State University students and $1 million for University of California students.
The Trump administration says the DACA program will be phased out over the next six months if Congress doesn't make it permanent.
More than 200,000 of the 800,000 program participants live in California. The state is one of 19 suing the Trump administration over the decision to end the program.
"We will not let one man with xenophobic tendencies undercut years of progress we have made in California to integrate these young adults into our society and economy," state Senator President pro Tempore Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, said in a statement. "California is their home and they are our future."
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press.
