HEALTH CARE — In his budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) included provisions to expand health care to all low-income undocumented immigrant residents in the state, report Tal Kopan and Dustin Gardiner of the San Francisco Chronicle. The proposal "would expand Medi-Cal, the health care program for low-income Californians, to include all people regardless of their immigration status, starting no earlier than 2024." The state budget for the upcoming fiscal year is expected to have a $46 billion surplus, Kopan and Gardiner note. "What Gov. Newsom shows is we must stop just talking about immigrants as important to our country, essential to our country, to our fabric and our diversity — it can’t just be rhetorical," said CHIRLA Executive Director Angelica Salas. "It has to be real changes and real policies and laws that uplift." 

DIVERSITY VISAS — The State Department said software issues that have caused a delay in issuing diversity visas will take an estimated four months to solve, reports Alyssa Aquino of Law360. "Winners of the 2020 visa lottery have been embroiled in a yearslong court battle to secure their visas, saying the State Department — under both the Trump and Biden administrations — had stopped processing visa applications from foreigners subject to a now-rescinded COVID-19 travel ban on immigrant visa holders," explains Aquino. In the meanwhile, the department will issue green cards awarded through the 2022 lottery. "[The State Department has] decided to procrastinate, and by only resuming processing in April, they may not plan to begin interviews before summer," 2020 visa winners said. "Defendants should not be permitted to manufacture their own crisis." 

IDAHO MOM — Mother of three Miriam Herrera and her husband recently flew from Twin Falls, Idaho, to the U.S.-Mexico border to get her green card — "a dream five years in the making," reports Julian Resendiz of Border Report. But last week, an immigration officer rejected her application and banned her from re-entering the U.S. for 10 years, citing two occasions she was in the U.S. unlawfully at ages five and seven. "We figured everything was going to be good. We don’t have a criminal record. We’ve done everything by the book..." said Baldemar Herrera, Miriam’s husband. "Our kids are wondering when we are coming home. We don’t want to tell them what’s going on because it’s hard enough on us and I imagine it’s going to be hard on them, too," Miriam said.