Topline:
Rebuilding after January’s fires is underway for some people. But others are facing what may be insurmountable financial obstacles.
Why it matters: The lack of direct, long-term financial aid for rebuilding is one of the biggest issues facing fire survivors who are underinsured or not insured at all.
Read on ... to meet an Altadena man who is fiercely determined to rebuild despite a wide financial gap.
Alphonso Browne pulls open the gate to his property, revealing a wide dirt lot, the concrete foundation of his former home and a pile of bricks that once framed his wraparound porch.
At the back of the lot, where there used to be a garage, two burnt-out classic cars remain — a 1947 Dodge pickup and a 1964 Volvo sedan. The Volvo was Browne’s favorite from his once-expansive antique collection.
At the front of the lot, there’s a new trailer Browne and his wife bought with the help of FEMA funding.
“We have this for a backup, just in case the temporary housing runs out,” Browne says.
The Brownes have lived in Altadena, just west of Lake Avenue, for more than 30 years. They raised four children in their 1912 Craftsman.
The only negative of the house, Browne recalls, was its lack of insulation.
“Otherwise, I wouldn’t change the house for nothing, except now Mr. Eaton makes us change it,” he says with a smile and soft laugh.
Browne, a retired bus driver, and his wife, Celestine, a former mail carrier, have been moving from place to place since losing their home: the Pasadena Convention Center for a month, various hotels and finally a small senior housing apartment in Pasadena, which they are paying for with FEMA funding.
They’re about to apply to renew their application for that temporary housing, which lasts up to 18 months.
“If they approve it, then great. If they don't, then, you know, we have to depend on another organization,” Browne says.
Or they’ll move into the trailer.
The Brownes live on a fixed income. They want to rebuild, but there’s a major obstacle: They were dropped by their homeowners insurance a month before the fire.
Browne points to the stump of what was once a large oak tree shading the home.
“They determined that the branch was hanging over the roof,” Browne says of his insurance company, Liberty Mutual. “I had some Christmas garlands on the side, hanging over the roof of the patio.”
And he had 10 vehicles, mostly classic cars, in the back. All reasons he was given by his insurer for dropping him.
A spokesperson said Liberty Mutual can’t comment on specific cases.
“Each risk is considered on its own merits,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “It’s important to fully consider the condition of a property, which could include roof health, overhanging trees and excessive growth and debris that presents potential loss.”
Neighborhood Housing Services of L.A. County:
The Brownes do have $400,000 from their mortgage lender’s insurance, but that’s far from the amount they need to rebuild. Browne says most of the estimates he’s received from contractors to rebuild what he had come in at over $1 million.
“That's why I'm telling these people, please quit using the word that you’re here to help me when you’re only here to help yourself,” Browne says.
The couple has been cobbling together what they need through GoFundMe, as well as county, state and philanthropic funds. They’ve gotten $18,000 here, $10,000 there, though most grants offer just a few thousand dollars at most.
“We’re just saving it to go toward the rebuild,” Browne says. “We’re not just going along, spending, buying cars. This is our focus.
“Whether it takes one year or 10 years, we are going to rebuild.”
The lack of direct, long-term financial aid for rebuilding is one of the biggest issues facing fire survivors who are underinsured or not insured at all, several experts told LAist.
“Homeowners need more direct support and clarity,” says Gabriella Carmona, a senior research analyst at UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Institute, who cowrote a new analysis about the issues facing fire survivors.
That report found that a small percentage of survivors have sold their properties, and roughly 70% have yet to take any steps to rebuild.
Black homeowners, who were disproportionately affected by the Eaton Fire, were more likely to be stalled in their progress nine months on.
Another recent report, by the nonprofit Department of Angels, found most survivors are being forced to dig into their savings and take on debt.
“This slow pace could be shaping who eventually comes back and what Altadena ends up looking like a couple years from now,” Carmona says.
How could recovery be improved? Carmona suggests expedited insurance payouts, more technical assistance and financial counseling for survivors, more bridge funding for the long-term recovery and better transparency and data about who has and hasn’t received resources.
For the Brownes, even with the help of a case manager from Community Organized Relief Effort, funding that moves the needle on rebuilding is almost impossible to come by.
“Why is it more than half of Altadena residents are still in the same square that we was on Jan. 8?” Browne asks.
For example, philanthropic funds have been allocated to a variety of nonprofits, all focused on different aspects of recovery and all with their own vetting and application requirements to disperse the funds. It’s hard to find the grants, and if survivors do, some, like Browne, get baffling rejections.
Another major snag? Congress has yet to appropriate federal funds to assist survivors with long-term recovery.
In late February, Gov. Gavin Newsom requested nearly $40 billion in federal aid. Congress has yet to act, and the government shutdown has stalled any further discussion.
Lori Gay, president of Neighborhood Housing Services of L.A. County, which is working with more than 1,000 fire survivors, says her group is seeing an unprecedented number of under- and uninsured households. The lack of federal funding is only adding to the strain.
“There's not some big check coming, so then what?” Gay says. “Most of the gaps we're seeing are up to $250,000 that people are short in being able to rebuild. So who pays for that? Nobody planned to burn homes. This is something that happened to families.”
One federal program that can be instrumental in filling such gaps is the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery. The funds are significant — households in the town of Paradise, which was razed in the 2018 Camp Fire, received funding up to $500,000, more in some cases, to assist with their rebuilds.
But that funding didn’t get to Paradise until more than two years after the Camp Fire.
“If that's kind of normal programming, will people make it that long if they're trying to hold out?” Gay asks about survivors of the Eaton and Palisades fires. “What happens if it doesn’t show up at all?”
The uncertainty about federal grants worries Robin Hughes, an Eaton Fire survivor and board member of the Altadena Builds Back Foundation. “I fear we will not be able to rebuild Altadena without these federal resources,” Hughes says.
The Altadena Builds Back Foundation is working to fill the gap of long-term rebuilding needs by launching a program with San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity to rebuild homes of multigenerational families and seniors on fixed incomes.
The slow pace and limited funds available for such programs could force people to take on debt, Hughes and Gay worry.
Or make a tough decision to sell and relocate.
Or people may take early payouts through Southern California Edison’s Wildfire Recovery Compensation Program.
That may end up being the case for Browne, who is seriously considering dropping his lawsuit against Edison and joining the utility’s payout program, if the details make sense to him when they’re released.
“I don't want to be rich,” Browne says. “I just want the house back.”
Topline:
The number of Californians without health insurance could double from 2 million today to 4 million by 2030, according to a report from the Legislative Analyst's Office. It’s the state budget office’s preliminary attempt to quantify how federal legislation known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” will reshape healthcare access statewide.
Losing coverage: The One Big Beautiful Bill is driving nearly 90% of the projected coverage loss, according to the LAO report. It's mostly Medi-Cal enrollees who are expected to be dropped when new work requirements take effect in 2027. The remaining 10% are largely people leaving the state's health insurance marketplace, Covered California, after enhanced federal premium subsidies expired last year.
L.A. County impact: County officials estimate that recent Medi-Cal changes could put coverage at risk for hundreds of thousands of residents and cost the county’s health departments about $800 million a year. A U.C. Berkeley Labor Center analysis projected more than 1 million Medi-Cal enrollees could lose coverage by 2028.
Why it matters: More uninsured people means hospitals and clinics provide more services without getting paid. The LAO projects that uncompensated care costs at hospitals could grow by several billion dollars statewide by 2030. Clinics face steeper losses because they run on smaller budgets and depend more heavily on Medi-Cal revenue. The LAO also projects premiums on the individual health insurance market will rise as healthier people drop coverage.
What's being proposed: The LAO itself doesn’t recommend new spending and instead urges lawmakers to track what happens to hospitals, clinics and county programs before taking action. But both L.A. County and state officials are pushing tax efforts to combat federal cuts. LA County voters will decide June 2 on Measure ER, a half-cent sales tax that would generate about $1 billion a year for hospitals and clinics. ANovember statewide ballot initiative would impose a one-time 5% tax on Californians worth over $1 billion and direct 90% of proceeds to Medi-Cal.
The number of Californians without health insurance could double from 2 million today to 4 million by 2030, according to a report from the state Legislative Analyst's Office. It’s the state budget office’s preliminary attempt to quantify how federal legislation known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” will reshape healthcare access statewide.
The One Big Beautiful Bill is driving nearly 90% of the projected coverage loss, according to the LAO report. It's mostly Medi-Cal enrollees who are expected to be dropped when new work requirements take effect in 2027. The remaining 10% are largely people leaving the state's health insurance marketplace, Covered California, after enhanced federal premium subsidies expired last year.
L.A. County officials estimate that recent Medi-Cal changes could put coverage at risk for hundreds of thousands of residents and cost the health departments about $800 million a year. A UC Berkeley Labor Center analysis projected more than 1 million Medi-Cal enrollees could lose coverage by 2028.
The LAO report also warns that county indigent health programs for uninsured residents will soon face a surge in demand they’re not prepared to meet. Those county programs had enrolled about 850,000 people statewide before the federal government expanded Medicaid coverage in 2014. Total enrollment is currently 10,000 statewide, but the trend is going to reverse, according to the report.
More uninsured people means hospitals and clinics provide more services without getting paid. The LAO projects that uncompensated care costs at hospitals could grow by several billion dollars statewide by 2030. Clinics face steeper losses because they run on smaller budgets and depend more heavily on Medi-Cal revenue.
The LAO also projects premiums on the individual health insurance market will rise as healthier people drop coverage.
The LAO itself doesn’t recommend new spending and instead urges lawmakers to track what happens to hospitals, clinics and county programs before taking action. But both L.A. County and state officials are pushing tax efforts to combat federal cuts.
L.A. County voters will decide June 2 on Measure ER, a half-cent sales tax that would generate about $1 billion a year for hospitals and clinics. ANovember statewide ballot initiative would impose a one-time 5% tax on Californians worth over $1 billion and direct 90% of proceeds to Medi-Cal.
Topline:
California regulators say State Farm has illegally delayed, underpaid and denied claims from policyholders affected by the 2025 L.A. fires — something fire survivors have said for months.
The investigation: The state analyzed 220 randomly selected claims filed in response to last year’s fires and found hundreds of violations by State Farm in more than half them — what state attorneys dubbed a “troubling pattern” in their filing.
The insurer's response: State Farm denied the allegations and called them politically motivated.
Read on ... for more on the state's action against its largest home insurer.
California regulators say State Farm has illegally delayed, underpaid and denied claims from policyholders affected by the 2025 L.A. fires — something fire survivors have said for months.
The California Department of Insurance announced Monday that it has taken the first step in the process to bring the allegations to a public hearing before an administrative judge. That could result in the state’s largest home insurer paying up to about $4 million in penalties, and suspension of its license for up to a year, meaning it could not write new policies in California during that time.
“Our investigation found that State Farm delayed, underpaid, and buried policyholders in red tape at the worst moment of their lives,” state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said in a statement.
The state analyzed 220 randomly selected claims — out of more than 11,000 filed with State Farm in response to last year’s fires — and found hundreds of violations in more than half them. Attorneys for the state called it a “troubling pattern” in their filing.
State Farm denied the allegations and called the state’s move “politically motivated” in a lengthy statement posted to its website.
Every Fire Survivors Network, a coalition representing thousands of L.A. fire survivors, pressured the state for months to investigate State Farm’s handling of wildfire claims.
Joy Chen, who co-founded the group after her home was damaged in the Eaton Fire, said the state’s action is far from enough.
“It’s just very disappointing to see our regulator issue a report that shows his own failures over the last 16 months,” she told LAist.
Only a few dozen homes have been rebuilt so far in both Altadena and Pacific Palisades since the fires destroyed more than 16,000 buildings, mostly homes, in those communities and nearby areas.
A survey by the nonprofit Department of Angels last year found that nearly three-quarters of L.A. fire survivors reported delays, denials and low payouts of their claims across all insurers.
“What we need is for all State Farm contracts to be enforced so that Los Angeles families can have the money that we need to move forward with getting back home,” Chen said.
The state’s alleged violations carry a fine of up to $5,000, and up to $10,000 if the violations are found to be willful. The case will be heard by a state administrative law judge, who will provide a recommendation to Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara on a possible penalty.
The Insurance Department said people with homeowners policies from any insurer can report problems with their claims at insurance.ca.gov or by calling (800) 927-4357.
Topline:
Details are out for FIFA’s World Cup Fan Zone parties in LA County in June and July. Watch tournament matches at ten locations from Venice Beach to Pomona, from free to $$$ with food, drink, and big screens.
Why it matters: The FIFA Fan Zones offer people an opportunity to get a taste of the tournament while not breaking the bank to pay for tickets.
The locations: The Original Farmers Market in L.A., June 18-21; The City of Downey, June 20; LA Union Station, June 25-28; Hansen Dam Lake, July 2-5; Magic Johnson Park, July 4-5; Whittier Narrows, July 9-11; Venice Beach, July 11; The Fairplex, July 14-15, July 18-19; West Harbor, July 14-15, July 18-19; Downtown Burbank, July 18-19
Some are free: The Fan Zones in the city of Downey, Union Station L.A., “Magic” Johnson Park, and Whittier Narrows are free of charge.
Go deeper: Will SoFi workers reap the benefits of the World Cup?
Yes, you could put a screen in your backyard and call up your friends to watch a particularly compelling World Cup game after the tournament begins June 12.
But FIFA is turning each game into a public celebration, sponsoring 10 outdoor Fan Zone watch parties with large viewing screens across L.A. County through the final on July 19.
Details were released on Monday, including locations, dates and prices.
The Fan Zones open in a staggered schedule from one day to four days each, starting with the Original Farmers Market on June 18 - 21, and then popping up across the region until the glorious end on July 19 in downtown Burbank.
The Original Farmers Market in L.A., June 18-21
The City of Downey, June 20
LA Union Station, June 25-28
Hansen Dam Lake, July 2-5
"Magic" Johnson Park, July 4-5
Whittier Narrows, July 9-11
Venice Beach, July 11
The Fairplex, July 14-15, July 18-19
West Harbor, July 14-15, July 18-19
Downtown Burbank, July 18-19
Ticket prices range from free (City of Downey, Union Station L.A., “Magic” Johnson Park, Whittier Narrows) to over $300 for a VIP experience with a viewing lounge and a concert at the downtown Burbank Fan Zone on the day of the World Cup final match on July 19.
At the first Fan Zone, at The Original Farmers Market from June 18 for four days, entry will cost you $5 per day or $17 for all four days. Kids age 3 and under are free. (FIFA says the zones are family friendly).
You’ll be able to see four matches there each of the four days, including Mexico vs. South Korea on June 18 at 6 p.m. and USA vs. Australia on June 19 at noon.
You won’t have to squint to find your favorite player or catch the goals. The Farmer’s Market will include a 30-foot viewing screen as well as a 15-foot secondary screen to watch the games. There will be beer gardens, and you can purchase food from the Market's dozens of establishments.
The West Harbor L.A. Fan Zone will give people an opportunity to experience the newest major development along the San Pedro waterfront, a 42-acre waterfront district that’s been years in the making.
The Union Station L.A. Fan Zone on June 25 is free and includes match viewing, music, food, and immersive fan experiences, featuring live DJs.
The final Fan Zone opens July 18 and 19 in downtown Burbank for the World Cup’s last two matches. FIFA says it’ll include “an adjacent international street fair filled with global flavors and cultural experiences.” Tickets range from $25 to over $300
The full list of the Fan Zones is here.
This of course, isn’t the only opportunity to watch World Cup matches with groups of people in SoCal. The city of L.A. will host its own watch parties.
Topline:
Up against a massive court backlog that can drag their cases for years, asylum seekers face steep costs when pursuing their dreams of college in California.
Facing a double blow: Asylum-seeking students in California often face a double blow: they are charged higher tuition for nonresidents and excluded from most financial aid. For students and their families, this can mean thousands of dollars paid out of pocket and years of financial stress as their immigration cases remain unresolved. Before establishing residency, asylum-seeking students are charged non-resident rates, which are about three times what state residents pay for public universities and roughly eight to 13 times more for community colleges, depending on the district.
Policy changes stoke uncertainty: As of February 2026, a little over 2.3 million immigrants are awaiting asylum hearings nationwide, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks federal activity. The most recent data shows California alone had about 169,000 pending asylum cases in its immigration courts by the end of 2023 — the second-largest backlog of any state. The average wait for an asylum hearing in California was 1,412 days at that time. The Trump administration paused asylum cases in November, creating even further delays. The administration has now allowed cases to resume for applicants from all but 40 countries.
Up against a massive court backlog that can drag their cases for years, asylum seekers face steep costs when pursuing their dreams of college in California.
Asylum-seeking students in California often face a double blow: they are charged higher tuition for nonresidents and excluded from most financial aid. For students and their families, this can mean thousands of dollars paid out of pocket and years of financial stress as their immigration cases remain unresolved.
Before establishing residency, asylum-seeking students are charged non-resident rates, which are about three times what state residents pay for public universities and roughly eight to 13 times more for community colleges, depending on the district.
All asylum seekers are disqualified from federal financial aid. The few who qualify for California’s state aid may never know their options, or face hurdles in obtaining it due to a patchwork of financial aid processes.
The state’s higher education systems are not mandated to track asylum seekers, making state budget impacts nearly unquantifiable during legislative attempts to expand financial aid eligibility.
“I only see them struggling,” said Eric Cline, social services program director at OASIS Legal Services, which supports LGBTQ+ asylum seekers across the Bay Area and Central Valley. “I’m always surprised (when) a few clients tell me 'I just graduated from college.’ I think, ‘Wow, how did that happen?’”
Asylum seeking is one of the least-protected immigration statuses in the U.S. Asylum seekers, who’ve fled their home countries fearing persecution and are asking the U.S. for protection, differ from refugees, whose status is granted before they enter the country. Asylum seekers apply upon arriving in the U.S.
Applicants can stay as their cases remain pending for years, though experts say the Trump administration is expediting deportations for numerous asylum seekers and ending cases before they can receive a full hearing.
As of February 2026, a little over 2.3 million immigrants are awaiting asylum hearings nationwide, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks federal activity. The most recent data shows California alone had about 169,000 pending asylum cases in its immigration courts by the end of 2023 — the second-largest backlog of any state. The average wait for an asylum hearing in California was 1,412 days at that time.
The Trump administration paused asylum cases in November, creating even further delays. The administration has now allowed cases to resume for applicants from all but 40 countries. In the San Francisco immigration court system, which is popular among asylum seekers due to higher acceptance rates, a combination of firings by the Trump administration, retirements and relocations whittled the 21 immigration judges to two, according to reporting in Mission Local. Left behind is a caseload of nearly 119,000 immigration cases, the highest of any immigration court in California.
President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” also established new fees for asylum seekers, placing additional pressure on an already low-income population. Applicants must now pay an initial $100 application fee plus $100 per year while their case is pending, $550 for a work permit, and $745 each year to renew the permit. In addition, a new rule proposed by the Department of Homeland Security would effectively end the ability of asylum seekers to obtain work permits at all.
As they await a decision, asylum seekers are excluded from federal aid and some state financial aid programs, including Cal Grants under California law.
For one asylum seeker, Carol, being ineligible for financial aid meant she had to take time off from school to work to make ends meet. CalMatters is not using her full name because she fears speaking publicly may jeopardize her asylum case.
Carol did speak before the Assembly Higher Education Committee in 2023 urging lawmakers to pass AB 888, which would have expanded Cal Grant eligibility to certain asylum seekers. The bill ultimately did not pass.
She said she arrived in the United States at 17 and had spent more than six years waiting for her case to move through immigration courts, a period during which she said she was ineligible for financial aid.
“I’ve had to delay my educational journey several times, including going part-time and even taking a semester off from school to work,” Carol told lawmakers.
Without access to aid, she said she experienced homelessness, couch surfing and at one point slept on a mattress topper on a hardwood floor because she could not afford a bed. She worked multiple jobs at a time, skipped meals and attended class without the required course materials.
Her story, she said, was not new. Carol told the committee that four years earlier her brother had testified with a nearly identical experience on behalf of a previous bill that was ultimately vetoed, a cycle she argued could have been prevented.
“Had California taken action then, I wouldn’t have had to face the harrowing experiences that I shared with you today,” she said.
Despite the barriers, Carol graduated from Cal State Long Beach and worked as a caseworker with the International Rescue Committee, helping resettle refugees and asylum seekers. She told lawmakers she hopes to pursue a law degree and become an international human rights attorney.
Many asylum seekers arrive eager to continue studies they began abroad, but quickly run into what Cline calls “a brick wall."
“All of our clients are low-income … they’re almost never eligible for generalized financial aid,” he said. “When you take away the financial aid aspect, it makes (college) pretty inaccessible.”
For California residents, annual undergraduate tuition is $15,588 at the University of California, $6,838 at the California State University and about $1,380 for 30 units at a community college. Students classified as non-residents — including some asylum seekers before establishing residency — can pay $54,858 at a University of California, about $20,968 at a Cal State before campus-based fees, and roughly $10,140 to $13,560 for 30 units at a community college, depending on the district. These figures do not include campus-based fees, housing or living expenses.
Even when students do manage to establish residency, the cost is still steep. For the many asylum seekers who arrive in the United States as adults, they may not have attended a California school previously, barring them from qualifying for state financial aid.
AB 540, the 2001 law that exempts undocumented students from paying non-resident tuition, only applies if the student attended a California high school or community college for three years.
Those who qualify through AB 540 can fill out the California Dream Act Application for state financial aid, such as Cal Grants, university system-specific grants, state loans, and the state’s middle class scholarship.
The application process can still be confusing for asylum seekers whose status is not fully accounted for in the design of the application. For example, asylum seekers often have Social Security numbers for work authorization, but affirming so while answering the financial aid pre-screening questions leads to undetermined eligibility because the questions don’t take into account the nuances of applying as an asylum seeker.
Asylum seekers often require extra help from financial aid counselors, but even counselors may not know how to help navigate eligibility rules. Students often wind up seeking help from undocumented student resource centers on public campuses, which are designed to help students who lack legal residency and those from mixed-status families find aid and academic support.
Kaveena Singh, the director of immigration legal services at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, which provides legal services to low-income immigrants, noted that she herself has written letters to financial aid offices to help explain the in-between nature of the few asylum-seeking students she has served.
As an asylum-seeking student in his mid-20s, L. ended up qualifying for state financial aid through AB 540. However, he misunderstood for six years exactly what aid he qualified for. L. wished to withhold his name and the names of the institutions he’s attended for fear of negative impacts on his pending asylum case.
Initially, community college didn’t cost him anything — but when he transferred to a large four-year university, the cost of college soared. He went to his university's financial aid office for help so often that all the staff there knew his name. It was a "big relief” when he was finally able to successfully fill out the California Dream Act Application, and obtain financial aid for his summer and fall quarters.
L.'s asylum case has been pending for nine years. He, his dad, mom and younger brother arrived in the United States in the winter of 2016, claiming asylum under fear of political retribution. His father organized political assemblies in China, and his mother was forced to have an abortion under the one-child policy.
“I just wish I could go home and visit family and friends and catch up for a good few weeks in the summer here and there to reconnect with my past,” L. said. “It's like there's two separate lives, like two entities being artificially cut.”
L. worked throughout high school and college, and worried about affording school.
Most days, the combination of family trauma and the limbo of waiting for his case means L. survives through “constant compartmentalization.”
In the meantime, he tries to carry on — he studies politics, and is interested in international relations and human rights.
"As rough as all that's happened, the silver lining is that one day hopefully I get a passport and a green card," L. said. "To help other people avoid such a hassle will be just as fulfilling for me."
Legislative bills to extend state financial aid eligibility to asylum-seeking students have been introduced at least twice in recent years but have failed.
One attempt came in 2019, when Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat from El Segundo, introduced SB 296, a bill that would have extended Cal Grant eligibility to students with pending asylum applications. The measure passed the Legislature with some bipartisan support, but was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said that it would "impose costs on the General Fund that must be weighed in the annual budget process."
“That was frustrating, but I understood it,” Allen told CalMatters. “The real issue is that we don’t have good data. Our schools don’t track asylum seekers, so we can’t easily calculate the cost.”
UC data on asylum-seeking students is protected due to privacy policies, according to Stett Holbrook, a UC spokesperson. The Cal State system reports it has less than 500 students with "asylum status," which includes both those who have an asylum granted and asylum seekers, according to Cal State spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith. The numbers are self-reported during the admissions process.
In spring 2025, 13,507 students self-identified as “refugee/asylee” across the California Community Colleges — up from 11,537 the prior semester — per the CCC DataMart. The data does not include a category for just asylum seekers. Students can self-identify their immigration status while applying, but asylum seekers are not specifically tracked, according to the college system’s spokesperson Melissa Villarin.
Four years after SB 296 failed, Democrat Sabrina Cervantes — then representing Riverside in the Assembly and now as a state senator — revived the proposal through AB 888, introduced in 2023. Like Allen’s earlier bill, AB 888 sought to make Cal Grants accessible to students with pending asylum applications by creating a direct eligibility pathway outside the AB 540 residency requirements. The bill passed the Assembly unanimously but was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee last September, effectively ending its chances for the year.
Cervantes declined an interview with CalMatters. “My Assembly Bill 888 would have created a new pathway for pending asylum seekers in California to apply for Cal Grant financial aid in pursuit of their higher education,” Cervantes wrote in a statement.
Newsom’s office declined to say whether he would support a future version of the proposal, pointing instead to his brief 2019 veto message.
“There’s nervousness around anything that involves new expenses," Allen said. “... We’re going to have to spend some time seeing what information we can get with regards to better data to get better estimated costs. I think that will help to better inform the conversation."
Andrea Baltodano and Chrissa Olson are contributors with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
