Fueling the Dreams of the Undocumented

STOCKTON — When 27-year-old Juan Valentin became
old enough to get behind the wheel, a friend gave him driving lessons in the
agricultural fields surrounding Stockton. As an undocumented immigrant from
Tijuana, Mexico, Valentin spent the next 10 years driving without a license. In
order to get to school or to work, he felt he had little choice.

“Do you work or do you not work?” said Valentin, who
spent many seasons picking grapes and bell peppers, and is now a warehouse
worker for a local food producer. “Do you bring food to the table for your kids
or not?”

Valentin said every time he drove a car, he had to
look over his shoulder. “‘What if I got pulled over, what if I have to walk
home? What if I got my kids with me?’”

Valentin had reason to worry. He says his father was
deported to Mexico after being pulled over on his way to Washington State to
pick cherries about 10 years ago. Valentin himself was cited twice for driving
without a license. His car was impounded each time. The second time, he
couldn’t afford the $1,500 fee to recover his car. For several months, friends
and family gave him rides to and from work while he saved money to buy another
vehicle.

So when California started allowing undocumented
people to get driver’s licenses in January 2015, Valentin signed up. He’s now
one of roughly 700,000 undocumented immigrants who have a California driver’s
license.

“My life has gotten so much easier,” he said.

Amid this election year’s highly charged debate over
immigration policies, California stands out for the many rights state lawmakers
have granted to an estimated 3 million undocumented residents. The suite of
policies goes far beyond driving privileges, providing freedom of movement,
work opportunities and protections, access to healthcare coverage and financial
assistance for higher education.

Research suggests that undocumented immigrants give
back to the economy. The nonpartisan Washington D.C.-based Institute on
Taxation and Economic Policy estimates undocumented immigrants in California
contribute more than $3.1 billion annually in state and local taxes.

Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of public policy
at the University of California, Riverside, argues that California lawmakers
have created the “life chances and free presence” that is out of reach to the
undocumented in other states.

“Over time, (when these policies) accumulate, they
start to become so meaningful that they start approximating the kinds of things
you might expect from full-blown political membership,” said Ramakrishnan, who
has written about California’s immigration policies heading toward “de
facto state citizenship” for undocumented immigrants.

California has passed immigrant friendly policies
since 2001, when undocumented students were given the right to in-state tuition
at California public universities and community colleges. But the number and
scope of state measures aimed at helping the undocumented assimilate into daily
California life have ballooned in the past few years.

Undocumented children can now get full Medi-Cal
coverage, and young adults can get state-funded grants for higher education.
Healthcare providers and other professionals cannot be barred licenses to
practice in California because of their immigration status. Other measures
protect the undocumented by barring law enforcement from detaining people
solely because of their immigration status, and preventing employers from
checking the legal status of existing employees as well as applicants who have
not been offered a job.

The federal government has played an important role
in allowing California to become more accommodating to the undocumented,
Ramakrishnan said, starting with President Obama’s 2012 executive action to
allow undocumented young people nationwide to get a temporary stay from
deportation, a policy known as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals).

Other factors pushed California in a pro-immigrant
direction. Immigrants rights groups have helped elect leaders supportive of
their cause, Ramakrishnan said. New legislative leadership, some with a large
Latino population in their district, tout the economic contributions of the
undocumented, and say California is filling the void on immigration
policymaking at the federal  level. Gov.
Jerry Brown has approved many of the measures, saying he supports bringing
undocumented immigrants “out of the shadows.”

“You have many folks who are the children of
immigrants who are now holding positions of leadership, trying to drive good
policy forward,” said state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los
Angeles).

Indeed, state Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Los Angeles), who
has carried bills to give new benefits to the undocumented, is the son of
parents who were once unauthorized. Brown recently signed one of Lara’s
measures; if approved by the federal government, it would allow the
undocumented to buy heath insurance through the state-run marketplace, Covered
California, without public subsidies.

“We have many immigrants who are here to stay,“ de
Leon said. “Let’s educate their children, let’s make sure their children are
productive citizens that they can contribute to the economy of California.” In
March 2016, the governor appointed a director of immigrant integration to
oversee new services for the undocumented. He approved $15 million of this
fiscal year’s state budget for the “One California” initiative, which helps the
undocumented naturalize or benefit from DACA.

“California is leading the vanguard of states that
have been going in a pro-integration direction,” said Randy Capps, director of
U.S. Programs of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think
tank in Washington, D.C. “There are also some states that are moving in the
opposite direction right now.”

In recent years, Capps said, states such as Texas
have tightened border security and enhanced cooperation between local law enforcement
and federal immigration officials. Texas officials have also refused to issue
birth certificates to Texas-born children of the undocumented, he said. Other
states have also restricted benefits to the undocumented, such as prohibiting
in-state tuition.

While keeping undocumented immigrants away from U.S.
borders and out of taxpayer-funded benefit programs is a central part of the
national Republican platform, among California’s GOP, the tone is softer and
the voting record is mixed. When California’s minority Republican lawmakers do
oppose pro-immigrant legislation, their arguments focus on scarcity of
resources.

“We don’t have enough revenue to take care of every
citizen in the State of California,” state Sen. Jeff Stone (R-Riverside) said
during a June 2015 debate in the Legislature about a budget proposal to allow
undocumented kids in Medi-Cal, the state’s healthcare program for the poor.

“So I will opine that we should take care of the
citizens that are legally here in the State of California.”

The conservative-leaning Hoover Institution at
Stanford University touts the economic value of immigration. Carson Bruno, a
Hoover research fellow, said more people are leaving California than settling
here, and he supports measures that enable immigrants to be more productive.

“Whether it’s high-skilled immigrants who are really
driving the new entrepreneurial ventures in Silicon Valley, or if it’s the
low-skilled immigrants who really are very important to the agricultural and
hospitality industry, immigrants on the net are economic drivers for the
state,” Bruno said.

However, Bruno says California should be careful not
to allow its policies to become a magnet for illegal immigration, and should
evaluate the economic and human impact of its immigration policies.

In the coming years, granting more rights and
benefits to immigrants — such as voting privileges, serving on juries or
running for office — will be a tougher battle, Ramakrishnan predicts.
Proposals to expand Medi-Cal to hundreds of thousands of undocumented adults
comes with a high price tag, and will have to compete with other budget
priorities.

“The chances of big changes … are smaller,”
Ramakrishnan said.

But the policy changes California has made so far
have already made a difference to Juan Valentin. Since he got his driver’s
license last year, he no longer limits his driving to work and getting
necessities. He says he now takes trips with his family to the Sacramento Zoo
and the coastal town of Santa Cruz.

“(California laws) have allowed us to be here and
feel more a part of the community.” Valentin said.

It wasn’t as easy for his parents to acclimate to
American society, he said. Their lives consisted only of going to work and
staying home. They “didn’t look towards the future,” he said. 

Valentin’s 19-year-old sister, Valeria, is already
going beyond the walls of work and home. Under President Obama’s executive
immigration action, she has temporary legal status. She attended college this
year, and was the first of her family to do so. She qualifies for state-funded
student financial aid under the California Dream Act, and hopes to use her
education to become a psychologist one day.

A college education felt out of reach to Juan
Valentin just a decade ago. He says his kids now have an aunt to look up to.

“She’s going to go farther than any of us.”

This article originally appeared in CALmatters.