undocumented immigrant

CHICAGO — When I turned on my phone after landing at O’Hare Airport on Wednesday, texts poured in from friends and colleagues warning that I was about to enter a region under siege.

Many sent a video from that morning of immigration agents running into a day care facility in Chicago’s Roscoe Village neighborhood to pull out a teacher. It was the latest attack against the metropolis by President Trump’s deportation Leviathan, whose so-called Operation Midway Blitz this fall has made its earlier occupation of Los Angeles look like a play date.

Armed agents have sauntered through downtown and manned a flotilla of boats on the Chicago River. They shot and killed a fleeing immigrant and raided an apartment building with the help of a Black Hawk helicopter. In nearby Broadview, home to the region’s main ICE detention facility, rooftop migra shot pepper balls at protesters below, including a pastor. They even tear-gassed a neighborhood that was about to host a Halloween children’s parade, for chrissakes.

From Back of the Yards to Cicero, Brighton Park to Evanston, immigration agents have sown terror throughout Chicagoland with such glee that a federal judge declared that it “shocks the conscience” and issued an injunction limiting their use of force — which they no doubt will ignore.

I was in town to speak to students at the University of Chicago about the importance of reporting on things one may not like. Heaven knows that’s been my 2025. But as I waited to deplane, I checked my email and found something I’ve sorely needed this year:

Hope.

On Tuesday, Democrats won governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia by wide margins. Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York, telling Trump to “Turn. The. Volume. Up” during a soaring victory speech.

Back home in California, 64% of voters favored Proposition 50, the ballot initiative crafted by Gov. Gavin Newsom to create up to five Democratic-leaning congressional districts in response to Trump’s gerrymandering in Texas.

It was a humiliating rebuke of Trumpism. And the tip of the Democratic spear? Latinos.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic governor-elect in New Jersey, takes a photo during an election-night party. Democrats reclaimed political momentum Tuesday with gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia, early signs that voter unease with the economy in President Trump’s second term could give them a path to winning control of Congress next year.

(Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In New Jersey, where Trump received 46% of the Latino vote in 2024, a CNN exit poll showed just 31% of Latinos siding with the losing GOP candidate for governor. Nearly two-thirds of Latinos in Virginia went against Cuban American Atty. General Jason Miyares, a Republican who also lost. The CNN poll also found that more than 70% of California Latinos voted for Proposition 50, a year after GOP Latino legislators made historic gains in Sacramento.

At the same time, support for Trump has dropped among Latinos. Only 25% of Latinos surveyed in October by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research viewed Trump favorably — a cratering from the 45% who liked him in April. Even more telling, two-thirds of Latino men thought negatively of Trump — despite 51% of that demographic choosing him in 2024.

Latinos’ leftward shift on election night already set off as many thought pieces as Trump did when he captured 48% of the Latino vote — the most a Republican presidential candidate has earned, despite his long history of slurring, maligning and insulting America’s largest minority. Democrats, who have long depended on Latino voters, were shocked, and GOP leaders were delighted, feeling that a demographic that had long eluded them was finally, truly within reach.

This week Latinos sent a loud message: You had your chance, y nada.

House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to play off his party’s collapse among Latinos to NBC News, sniffling, “I do believe that the demographic shift that we were able to see and experience in the 2024 election will hold.”

Mike: time to bring the Republican Party out of its Stockholm syndrome. Your guy has blown it with Latinos. Let him keep doubling down on his madness, and Latinos will continue to flip on ustedes like a tortilla.

Trump’s 2024 victory was the culmination of an extraordinary shift in the Latino electorate that few saw coming — but I did. As I’ve written ad nauseam since 2016, Latinos were beginning to favor the GOP on issues like limited government, immigration restrictions and transgender athletes in high school sports because Democrats were taking them for granted, obsessing over woke shibboleths while neglecting blue-collar issues like gas prices and high taxes.

A voter holds a sign in Spanish while riding with other voters to the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center as part of a 2024 event organized by LUCHA (Living United For Change In Arizona) for Latinx voters and volunteers in Arizona.

(Anna Watts/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

All this was was happening as the Biden administration made it easier for newly arrived undocumented immigrants to remain, angering those who have been here for decades without similar help. The long-standing tendency for Latinos to sympathize with the latest Latin Americans to cross over eroded, and some became more receptive to Trump’s apocalyptic words against open borders.

Last year 63% of Latinos in California considered undocumented immigrants to be a “burden,” according to a poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.

That happened to be the same percentage of California voters who favored Prop. 187, the infamous 1994 initiative that sought to make life miserable for undocumented immigrants and showed the GOP that xenophobic politics can work.

After the 2024 election, Latinos seemed to be joining earlier Catholic immigrants who were once cast as invaders — Irish, Italians, Poles, Germans — on the road to assimilation and the waiting arms of the Republican party. All Trump had to do was improve the economy and clamp down on the border. If he did the former, Latinos would have been largely supportive of the latter, as long as deportations focused on newcomers.

Instead, Trump wasted his opportunity.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents knock on the door of a residence during a targeted enforcement operation in Chicago.

(Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The economy remains stagnant. Trump effectively declared war on Latin America with tariffs real and threatened and by bombing Venezuelan and Colombian boats suspected of carrying drugs without asking permission from Congress.

Trump officials keep issuing punitive policies that crush the dreams of Latinos, like a crackdown on English fluency in the trucking industry and ending federal grants that helped colleges and universities recruit and retain Latino students.

Federal agents leave the area of North A Street as residents and community members protest an early morning federal enforcement action in Oxnard.

(Julie Leopo/For The Times)

But Trump’s biggest mistake has been his indiscriminate deportation raids. His toxic alphabet soup of immigration enforcement agencies — HSI, ERO, CPB, ICE — largely has ignored the so-called “worst of the worst” in favor of tamale ladies, fruteros and longtime residents. Nearly three-quarters of immigrants in ICE detention as of September have no criminal convictions, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

Trump’s deportation deluge has rained down across the country as his administration repeatedly has exhibited white supremacist tendencies, from effectively blocking all new refugees except South African Boers to pumping out social media garbage extolling a mythical America where white makes right and Latinos exist only as blurry mug shots of alleged illegal immigrants.

A federal agent holds his weapon as law enforcement officers conduct a raid on street vendors. New Yorkers witnessing the attempted detainments began protesting and attempted to block agents.

(Michael Nigro/LightRocket via Getty Images)

No wonder 65% of Latinos feel it’s a “bad time” to be Latino in the U.S. — a 25-percentage-point drop in optimism from March of last year, according to an Axios-Ipsos poll done with Telemundo and released this week.

Trump even is losing credibility among Latino Republicans, with a September 2024 AP-NORC poll finding that 83% of them had a “very” or “somewhat” positive view of the president last year.

Now? Sixty-six percent.

Trump very well can win back some of those Latinos in 2026 if the economy improves. But every time his migra goons tackle innocents, another Latino will turn on him and get ready to fight back.

At the University of Chicago, orange whistles hung around a bronze bust just outside the room where I spoke. They’ve become a symbol of resistance to Trump’s invasion of the City of Strong Shoulders, blown by activists to alert everyone that la migra is on the prowl.

A bronze bust with whistles around it inside Swift Hall at the University of Chicago. They’ve become a symbol of resistance, blown by activists to alert everyone that la migra is on the prowl.

(Gustavo Arellano/Los Angeles Times)

I grabbed one as a memento of my time here and also as a reminder of what’s happening with Latinos right now. Nationwide, we’re warning everyone from the front lines — the streets, the ballot box, the courtroom, everywhere — about the excesses of Trump and warning him what happens if he doesn’t listen.

So, Trump: Turn. The. Volume. Up.

SACRAMENTO — Though raging thousands of miles to the east, the entrenched stalemate in Washington over federal spending and the ensuing government shutdown has thrust California’s expansive healthcare policies into the center of the pitched, partisan debate.

The Trump administration and the Republican leaders in Congress continue to use California, and the benefits the state has extended to eligible immigrants regardless of their legal status, as a cudgel against Democrats trying to extend federal subsidies for taxpayer-funded healthcare coverage.

President Trump claimed recently that Democrats “want to have illegal aliens come into our country and get massive healthcare at the cost to everybody else.” Democrats called Trump’s assertion an absolute lie, accusing Republicans of wanting to slash federal healthcare benefits to Americans in need to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy.

“California has led the nation in expanding access to affordable healthcare, but Donald Trump is ripping it away,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said.

In return for their votes to reopen the government, Democratic leaders in Congress want to reverse Medicaid cuts made in Republicans’ tax and spending bill passed this summer and continue subsidies through the Affordable Care Act, a program long targeted by Republicans. The subsidies, which come in the form of a tax credit, help lower health insurance costs for millions of Americans.

Can immigrants in the country illegally enroll in federal healthcare programs?

No. Undocumented immigrants are ineligible for Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program or Medicare, or coverage through the Affordable Care Act, according to KFF, an independent health research organization.

Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-South San Francisco) held a virtual town hall last week in which he highlighted the “misinformation” about immigrants and healthcare.

“I just want to be completely clear that federal funding does not pay for health insurance for undocumented immigrants, period,” Mullin said.

Jessica Altman, executive director of Covered California, said the debate is really over “who can benefit from the federal dollars that are flowing to all states, including California,” to help lower costs for health insurance.

Covered California serves as a marketplace exchange for state residents seeking healthcare insurance under the Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare, allowing them to select from name-brand insurance providers and choose from a variety of coverage plans. The vast majority of Californians receive federal subsidies to lower their premiums, including many middle-income families who had become eligible when Congress expanded the financial assistance in 2021.

Those expanded subsidies will expire at the end of the year, and Democrats are demanding that they be extended as part of any deal to reopen the government before they vote in favor of what is known as a continuing resolution, or a temporary funding bill to keep the federal government running.

“From the very beginning, undocumented or illegal — whatever terminology you want to use — individuals were never eligible for those tax credits, never eligible for those cost-sharing reductions, and in fact, and not even eligible to come onto a marketplace and buy coverage if they paid the full costs,” Altman said.

California does offer state healthcare coverage for undocumented immigrants

Through Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the federal Medicaid program, some medical coverage is offered, regardless of immigration status. The majority of that money comes from the state.

H.D. Palmer, deputy director for external affairs at the California Department of Finance, said the cost to provide Medi-Cal to undocumented immigrants in the current fiscal year is just over $12.5 billion.

State money accounts for $11.2 billion and the remaining difference is reimbursed with federal funding because it’s used to cover emergency services, Palmer explained.

“Under current law, hospitals that receive Medicaid are required to provide emergency care, including labor and delivery, to individuals regardless of their citizenship status,” he said. “That goes back to a budget law that was approved by Congress in 1986 and signed by President Ronald Reagan.”

The 1986 law is called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, and allows for emergency healthcare for all persons.

Some Republicans have raised other concerns about the state’s use of managed care organization taxes.

The MCO tax is a federally allowable Medicaid funding mechanism that imposes a tax on health insurance providers that charge fixed monthly payments for services and is based on the number of people enrolled in plans each month. The revenue from the tax can then be used to support Medicaid expenditures with federal matching funds.

Critics say California exploits a so-called loophole: By increasing the MCO tax, and subsequently bringing in more matching federal funds, California can then put more of its own state money toward healthcare for undocumented immigrants.

“We are bringing in all those additional federal dollars and then reallocating other money away so that we can provide about $9.6 billion for Medi-Cal for undocumented and illegal immigrants,” said Assemblymember David J. Tangipa (R-Fresno). “The MCO tax was never supposed to be weaponized in that process.”

White House officials also contend that California could not afford to put resources toward benefits for undocumented immigrants if it had not received the extra federal money — a claim Newsom disputes.

“What the president is saying, he’s lying,” Newsom said at a recent event. “Speaker [Mike] Johnson’s lying. They’re lying to the American people. It’s shameful. … I guess they’re trying to connect their displeasure with what California and many other states do with state resources in this space, and that is a very separate conversation.”

California is not alone in offering such healthcare to immigrants in the country illegally

A “small but growing” number of states offer state-funded coverage to certain groups of low-income people regardless of immigration status, according to KFF.

California became the first state in the nation last year to offer healthcare to all low-income undocumented immigrants, an expansion spearheaded by Newsom.

Newsom has since partially walked back that policy after the costs exceeded expectations. Starting in January, most adult Medi-Cal applications will be blocked — although current enrollees can continue to renew — and some adults will be required to pay monthly premiums. Undocumented minors under age 19, who became eligible for Medi-Cal nearly a decade ago, will not be affected by the changes.

The upcoming changes to the state’s policies and the enrollment freeze will help decrease the overall costs, which are projected to fall to about $10.1 billion during the next fiscal year, according to the California Department of Finance.

While the governor’s shift angered his most progressive allies and renewed speculation that he is tacking to the political middle ahead of his expected run for president in 2028, the Democratic-led Legislature approved the Medi-Cal eligibility changes in June.

Public opinion on the issue may also be changing.

Fifty-eight percent of adults in California were opposed to providing healthcare for undocumented immigrants, according to a poll released in June from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. This was a notable shift, as previous surveys from the institute conducted between 2015 to 2023 showed the majority approved.

Who would lose coverage if the tax credits end and Medicaid cuts aren’t reversed?

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by Republicans this summer, ends healthcare subsidies that were extended during the pandemic and makes other cuts to programs. According to the White House, the bill “contains the most important America First healthcare reforms ever enacted.”

“The policies represent a comprehensive effort to address waste, fraud, and abuse to strengthen the healthcare system for the most vulnerable Americans, ensuring that taxpayer dollars are focused on American citizens and do not subsidize healthcare for illegal immigrants,” the White House said in a statement on Oct. 1.

Among other things, the law limits Medicare and other program eligibility to certain groups, including green card holders, effective July 2025. Other lawfully present immigrants, including refugees and asylees, are no longer eligible, according to KFF.

It’s estimated that the eligibility restrictions will result in about 1.4 million lawfully present immigrants becoming uninsured, reduce federal spending by about $131 billion and increase federal revenue by $4.8 billion as of 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

At the same time, a broader group of lawfully present immigrants, including refugees, will lose access to subsidized coverage through the ACA marketplace by January 2027.

Covered California’s Altman estimated that there are about 119,000 immigrants in California who are covered and would lose eligibility for financial assistance.

More broadly, Altman and other healthcare experts predict that healthcare premiums will skyrocket if the ACA tax credits expire.