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California is spending millions of dollars on a program that providesfree solar panels, refrigerators, and windowsto “low-income” farmworkers, including illegal immigrants.
The initiative, called the Farmworker Housing Component of the Low-Income Weatherization Program, is part of California’s sprawling, multibillion-dollar “cap-and-trade” system, whichtaxes carbon producersand redistributes approximately$3 billion per yearto energy programs andleft-wing social causes— all under the banner offighting “climate change.”
Since 2019, California’s government has earmarked$49 millionfor the farmworker program, which operates through an opaque web that includes a government agency, nonprofit providers, and private contractors.
California’s Department of Community Services and Development selectedLa Cooperativa Campesina de California, a nonprofit that serves farmworkers, to administer the program. La Cooperativa, in turn, has partnered with a for-profit, “minority owned” company,MAROMA Energy Services, to help run the program. Contractors do the work of installing solar panels and other appliances.
These organizations have heavily advertised the program to California’s nearly 900,000agricultural workers, half to three-quarters of whom are illegal immigrants.
In its official documentation, California’s Department of Community Services and Development acknowledges thatnon-citizens are eligible for the programand that they even accept identification from foreign governments.
In aSpanish-language radio broadcast, Natalie Velores, a program manager for MAROMA, confirmed that participants do not need “legal status” in the United States and can use amatrìcula consular, a common form of identification that theMexican consulate provides to migrantswho have crossed the border, to apply.
“We only require an ID,” Velores said. “It doesn’t need to be from this state, or [the] United States.”
One challenge was to convince workers that the program was not a scam. The other challenge, after the Trump administration increased ICE raids, was finding potential clients, many of whom “stopped showing up to job sites.”
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
