California state lawmakers are one step closer to expanding coverage under Obamacare to illegal immigrants, sending a bill to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk that would allow those living in the state illegally to buy health insurance on the exchange with their own money.

The California Legislature passed a bill last week setting in motion a process to eventually allow illegal immigrants living in the state to purchase private health insurance through its state-run exchange, Covered California.

Illegal immigrants cannot and would not qualify for federal subsidies available to lower-income Americans under Obamacare.

The bill requires the state to request permission from the federal government to waive a provision of the Affordable Care Act prohibiting illegal immigrants from participating in Obamacare’s exchanges.

If Brown, a Democrat, decides to sign the legislation and receives the government’s blessing, California would become the first state to offer health insurance to illegal immigrants through Obamacare.

Though the health care law prohibits illegal immigrants from participating in Obamacare’s exchanges, California officials can seek approval from the Department of Health and Human Services through a Section 1332 “State Innovation Waiver” to bypass that prohibition.

California’s bill instructs the state to pursue a State Innovation Waiver from the federal government. Section 1332 of the health care law allow states to request five-year waivers from key aspects of the Affordable Care Act, including the individual and employer mandates, beginning next year.

To attain a State Innovation Waiver, a state must “pursue innovative strategies” to provide residents with health insurance, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The plan must not only ensure residents have access to “comprehensive and affordable” health care, but it also must provide coverage to either the same number of or more people covered under Obamacare.

Last, for the Section 1332 to be granted, the state’s strategy cannot add to the federal deficit.

The legislation, sponsored by state Sen. Ricardo Lara, a Democrat, was passed last week, and groups opposing illegal immigration are sounding off against the measure.

“With a legislature writing bills for people in our state illegally, this is incentive for the world to come to California illegally,” Robin Hvidston, executive director of the California grassroots group We the People Rising, told The Daily Signal. “California is in the United States of America, and our legislators should be focused on legislating for our U.S. citizens.”

Though illegal immigrants aren’t eligible for subsidies under Lara’s bill, Hvidston worries that in the future, more changes to the law will come.

“It is historically a progression in our state where the bill starts at a certain level, then increases the next year with a new benefit, and on and on,” she said.

Like Hvidston, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, too believes the legislation on Brown’s desk is simply a first step.

“This follows a pattern in California. [The bill] is kind of being framed innocuously as ‘We’re not going to subsidize illegal immigrants and just give them an opportunity to buy insurance through the exchanges,’” Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for FAIR, told The Daily Signal. “Of course, there are few who are going to be able to buy coverage without subsidies. This is the first step in the process.

“First, you make it possible for them to buy policies through the exchange, and when nobody can do that because it’s too expensive, you say we have to give them subsidies.”

Regardless of how California’s policy could progress in the future, groups in favor of the bill argue the state should be working to ensure all Californians have access to quality coverage.

“People who have different viewpoints on immigration policy can come together in recognition that it is everyone’s interest to connect as many Californians with coverage, and prevent the health and financial issues for not just uninsured families, but the community as a whole,” Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, told the Washington Examiner.

The group did not return The Daily Signal’s request for comment.

California has the largest population of illegal immigrants—2.6 million—in the country. Covered California puts expected enrollment in private health insurance coverage through the exchange at 50,000 enrollees.

Other estimates place the number of illegal immigrants who would be able to head to the exchange at 390,000.

Lara proposed the legislation initially in 2014, and it recently earned a nod of support of Covered California board members.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Democratic lawmaker is hoping the state sends the waiver to the Department of Health and Human Services for consideration while President Barack Obama is still in office.

If Brown signs the bill, the departments of Health and Human Services and Treasury can take up to 225 days to respond to the waiver.

Because the decision to determine if Lara’s bill qualifies for a Section 1332 waiver, which outlines specific provisions for proposals that pass muster, would ultimately fall to the federal government, Ed Haislmaier, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow in health policy studies, said it’s likely the legislation amounts to an “empty gesture,” in part because of the high cost of unsubsidized health care on the exchanges.

“I think it’s more symbolic than anything else because to the extent that people in the U.S. illegally are being treated, they’re either paying out of pocket, which some probably are, or they’re relying on charitable and publicly funded providers such as hospitals and federally qualified health centers to obtain their care,” he said.

“Given that the government is having difficulty getting legal, U.S. citizens in the same demographic to actually buy insurance even though it’s heavily subsidized, I don’t know how much success they’ll have,” Haislmaier continued.

However, Mehlman with FAIR, said the Obama administration’s actions regarding illegal immigration indicate they would be in favor of granting the waiver.

“Given the inclinations of this administration and the policies they’ve carried out over the past seven and a half years, you have to suspect they would really want to do this,” he said. “Whether they will do it, I don’t know. I suspect that if the opportunity presented itself and they thought it wouldn’t harm them and their party politically, they probably would do it.”

During a speech before a joint session of Congress in 2009, Obama attempted to debunk claims that under Obamacare, illegal immigrants would receive health insurance, which prompted a now-infamous “You lie,” from Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C.

“There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants,” he told lawmakers. “This, too, is false. The reforms that I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.”

Though California is the only state to consider a proposal expanding coverage to illegal immigrants under Obamacare, Colorado residents are considering a proposal that would require state officials to attain a Section 1332 waiver.

The proposal, which Colorado residents will vote on on the November ballot, would create a government-run health care plan in the Centennial State called ColoradoCare. (For more from the author of “California Could Become the First State to Expand Coverage to Illegal Aliens Under Obamacare” please click HERE)

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Refusing to accept the federal government’s excuse that defying one of his judicial orders was a mistake, U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen has barred several Justice Department lawyers from his courtroom and ordered others to take classes in ethics.

“The misconduct in this case was intentional, serious and material,” the Brownsville, Texas-based judge wrote Thursday. “In fact, it is hard to imagine a more serious, more calculated plan of unethical conduct.”

In February 2015, Hanen issued an order to block the Obama administration from giving out 100,000 extended work permits as a result of a lawsuit by 26 states against Obama’s executive order allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the United States.

However, the administration went ahead and issued them anyhow. As a result, Hanen expressed his disappointment with the Justice Department on Thursday.

“Clearly, there seems to be a lack of knowledge about or adherence to the duties of professional responsibility in the halls of the Justice Department,” Hanen wrote in a 28-page order.

Judge Andrew Hanen is my new hero! Sad that he has to tell DOJ attorneys to tell the truth in court! Common sense appears to not be common.

— karminak (@karminak) May 20, 2016

Hanen’s order said the Justice Department “admitted making statements that clearly did not match the facts. It has admitted that the lawyers who made these statements had knowledge of the truth when they made these misstatements.”

He said the explanation he was given was that the lawyers “lost focus” or that the “fact(s) receded in memory or awareness,” which caused them to “effectively … misdirect” the court.

The Justice Department, he wrote, “purports to represent all Americans — not just those who are in favor of whatever actions the Department is seeking to prosecute or defend. The end result never justifies misconduct.”

As a result, Hanen ordered that, for the next five years, any attorney from the Department of Justice who wants to argue in either state or federal court in any state involved in the immigration case must take an annual three-hour ethics course.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch was ordered to give Hanen a “comprehensive plan” within 60 days that would “prevent this unethical conduct from ever occurring again.”

Hanen also demanded a list of all illegal immigrants given extended work permits, and said he may release that list to the authorities of the states where those illegal immigrants live, depending on the outcome of the U.S. Supreme Court’s review of the case, which is expected in June. (For more from the author of “Federal Judge Slams Justice Department for ‘Unethical Conduct’ on Illegal Aliens” please click HERE)

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The number of children illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border alone during the first six months of this fiscal year is almost at the level of apprehensions that occurred in the same time period of 2014, a year when the Obama administration described the issue as a humanitarian crisis.

Children are coming with their families, meanwhile, at a rate almost double from two years ago.

The surge—both in 2014 and this year—is being driven by migrants fleeing violence, corruption, and poverty from the Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

The spikes are alarming immigration experts because crossings of the southwest border had declined after Mexico last year began better enforcing its borders—with help from the U.S.—and the Obama administration in 2014 pursued a public awareness campaign in Central America discouraging people from migrating.

According to data compiled by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, apprehensions at the southern border this fiscal year of unaccompanied children, and families, is significantly up from 2015.

Experts tell The Daily Signal the sustained flow of illegal immigration from Central America shows the problem cannot be solved by enforcement measures alone.

“Our current policy of deterrence featuring interdictions and family detention won’t work in the long run—you need more of a protection scheme,” said Kevin Appleby, director of international migration policy at the Center for Migration Studies.

“You need a regional protection system that gives children and families an alternative to taking the dangerous journey to the United States.”

David Inserra, a homeland security expert at The Heritage Foundation, believes that the slow process of immigrants getting resolution to their cases at backlogged immigration courts, and the fact that few are being deported quickly, is giving incentive for migrants to travel here illegally.

“Our efforts with Central American governments on outreach may have had some success, but reality has caught up to public affairs,” Inserra said.

“People are seeing that if you come to the U.S. as a child or with your family, you are not going to be removed quickly.”

With the summer approaching, when peaks of illegal immigration usually occur, the Obama administration has started to prepare, with the Department of Health and Human Services requesting contingency funding to shelter apprehended children from Central America, who are given special protection under U.S. law and cannot be deported without a hearing.

In other efforts to deal with the challenge, the Obama administration is contesting a court ruling last year from a federal judge in California, who ordered that children and their parents temporarily held in detention centers (as they wait for a hearing on their status) should be released quickly, and that minors can’t be kept in facilities not licensed for child care.

In addition, earlier this year, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement began a series of raids targeting Central American families who have already been told by an immigration judge that they don’t qualify for asylum.

Yet the administration has also sought more enduring solutions. Late last year, Congress agreed to provide $750 million in spending to help Central American countries combat poverty, gang violence, trafficking, and government corruption, and to improve border security and social programs.

On Jan. 13, Secretary of State John Kerry announced an expansion of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to protect children and families from Central America.

The program was designed to screen migrants for refugee status before they make the dangerous journey to the U.S., which often involves them paying human smugglers.

Under the new program, any immigrant from El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras who is claiming persecution can apply to the United Nations for protection, but the laws determining eligibility to come to the U.S. as a refugee did not change.

Before the new program was created, only children with parents already living legally in the U.S. could apply in their home countries for refugee status here.

Appleby says these programs have been slow moving, because many children struggle to obtain legal representation and that Central American immigrants find it difficult to access processing centers.

The numbers would seem to back him up.

According to State Department data, there were 85 immigrants from El Salvador admitted to the U.S. as refugees from January through April, but only 12 migrants have been resettled from Honduras this year, and two from Guatemala.

While Inserra supports in-country processing and other efforts to discourage migrants from taking the dangerous journey to the U.S., he believes American policymakers can do more to enforce the law.

“The reality is there are pushes and pull factors, whenever you talk about how to stop illegal immigration,” Inserra said. “We can’t pursue a purely enforcement-based strategy. Working with the Central American governments to encourage rule of law, and to fight corruption and criminality, has to be a piece of it. Where we can help, we should, but we can’t control how well Honduras or El Salvador actually does those things. We can completely control how we enforce our own laws.”

Appleby argues the conditions driving Central Americans away from their home countries are so strong right now that U.S. policy only means so much.

“Regardless of what policies may or not be drawing them here, you have a push factor that is much stronger,” Appleby said. “The forces driving children and families are much stronger than the risks of the journey, at least in their mind, so they take their chances.” (For more from the author of “Central Americans Are Crossing the Border Illegally at 2014 ‘Crisis’ Levels” please click HERE)

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Statistics released by Border Patrol this morning indicate that illegal immigrant families are now crossing into the United States at a record rate. The Border Patrol reports that more than 32,000 family units have been caught trying to enter the United States, which according to the Washington Times is “nearly a 40 percent” increase from 2014.

Stephen Dinian, writing for the Washington Times:

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson had thought he’d licked the problem two years ago, after surging manpower to the border. And indeed the numbers did drop in late 2014 and early 2015.

But the pace of both families and unaccompanied children picked up last summer, just as Mr. Johnson announced new relaxed rules for detaining illegal immigrants, and it has remained high ever since.

This report follows another report from Conservative Review’s Daniel Horowitz that revealed 80% of Central American children flooding the Southern border are being housed with fellow illegal aliens.

Horowitz will discuss the implications of rampant illegal immigration for United States citizens in his new book “Stolen Sovereignty,” out this July. (For more from the author of “Illegal Alien Families Entering US at ‘Record’ Rate” please click HERE)

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