RICHMOND, Va. - With new voters migrating to the state, observers say Virginia is very gradually trending in a progressive direction. Jon Liss, co-executive director with New Virginia Majority, says more immigrants, people of color and other traditionally liberal voters help explain why Democrats have been winning state-wide races.
He says much of this is in an arc from Hampton Roads, through Richmond and into Northern Virginia. Liss says the pattern has yet to really impact general assembly races like those next month, but that might be coming.
"Demographics are not destiny, but it's trending this way slowly but surely - new voters, African-American voters, immigrant voters, voters of color, young voters, women voters - will vote proportionate to their numbers in the population," says Liss.
Conservatives argue the state and the country is reacting against a liberal president. Liss argues that shows up more in mid-term elections than presidential years.
Liss says the state has long had an entrenched, conservative, almost aristocratic, political culture - hence low taxes, skimpy public benefits and a pro-business climate.
Liss says it's no accident that only a handful of the 146 General Assembly races this year will be competitive thanks to how the districts are drawn.
Plus, he says, the state has a tradition of discouraging voting through strategies like scheduling elections when turnout is likely to be low.
"That's a pretty explicit intent of setting it on an off year," says Liss. "There's maybe a dozen and probably really seven or eight races that are highly competitive."
A greater portion of Virginians are people of color than the national rate, with about one-in-five African American.
That number has been stable for years, but Liss says Virginia is getting waves of immigrants from other countries, first from Latin America and now from Asia. He says they are typically younger and have larger families.
Liss says he's sensing a shift in attitudes, with Virginia being more welcoming to immigrants.
"Five years ago there were literally dozens of anti-immigrant bills for every legislative session," he says. "But honestly, I've felt like the rhetoric, for at least the last couple of years, has generally toned down."
Information on things like polling sites can be found at elections.virginia.gov.
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New documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit showed how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to expand immigrant detention centers in Colorado.
Centers are planned for Hudson and La Junta, and Colorado Springs and Walsenburg would each get two facilities, all run by private firms.
Tim Macdonald, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado, said ICE should not be outsourcing centers to for-profit companies such as GEO Group, which runs a facility in Aurora with a history of civil rights abuses and lack of medical care.
"That's a terrible model," Macdonald contended. "We should not put profits on the backs of immigrants, it creates an incentive to detain more innocent men, women and children."
Macdonald pointed to a 2019 report documenting abuse, neglect and even death at GEO's Aurora detention center. In 2024, the family of Melvin Mendoza filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the facility for failing to diagnose and treat a blood clot in Mendoza's leg. GEO did not respond to questions about the Mendoza suit but said by email they are proud of their 40 years of work with ICE and strictly comply with ICE detention standards.
President Donald Trump campaigned on the promise of mass deportations and as of last week more than 56,000 people have been detained, according to a Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse analysis of ICE data, which also found more than 70% of people being detained have no criminal record. Macdonald noted Trump also promised to prioritize deporting violent criminals.
"We know that's not happening," Macdonald pointed out. "They are detaining and removing grandmothers, pregnant women. In fact the evidence is that most of the people they are detaining and deporting have no criminal record whatsoever."
The new GOP tax and spending law includes $170 billion for immigration enforcement and $45 billion, an amount larger than the entire federal prison system's budget, is earmarked for expanding detention centers to hold more than 100,000 people per day.
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No matter their legal status, Albuquerque wants immigrants to feel safe in New Mexico's largest city and has unveiled a new executive order to make it happen.
Tim Keller, mayor of Albuquerque, said the order clarifies and strengthens city policies against fraud and impersonators, including directing police to go after anyone pretending to be an ICE agent. Keller stressed policy enhancements underscore the city's dedication to uphold the rights and dignity of community members and defend them from intimidation.
"Whether it is ICE agents popping out of vans wearing masks rounding up people who are not even immigrants, who are Native Americans, who are legally here in the city, whether it's McDonald's or it's Walmart," Keller outlined. "This has nothing to do with immigration policy; this is more like terror."
Over the weekend, the head of ICE said he will continue allowing the controversial practice of his officers wearing masks over their faces during their arrest raids. Keller noted there are 20,000 immigrants in the city who annually contribute more than $5 billion in economic activity.
Fabiola Landeros, community organizer of immigration for the nonprofit El Centro, first got in touch with the immigrant workers' rights group when her brother was deported. She said the Trump administration's mass deportation policy is creating fear, chaos and suffering, affecting families, public safety and health, the educational system and the economy.
"ICE is disappearing people," Landeros pointed out. "Imagine feeling afraid every time you leave your home, that you will be disappeared, separated from your children, or that you could be held in a detention center in a country that you're not from. This is against our collective values."
Data show at least 16% of the city's small businesses are run by immigrants. On Sunday, about 300 protesters gathered to demonstrate outside an Albuquerque Walmart where earlier this month ICE agents tased a man they were attempting to arrest.
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By Claudia Boyd-Barrett for KFF Health News.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the KFF Health News-Public News Service Collaboration
For months, Maria, 55, a caregiver to older adults in California’s Orange County, has been trying not to smile.
If she opens her mouth too wide, she worries, people will see her chipped, plaque-covered front teeth. An immigrant without legal status, Maria doesn’t have health or dental insurance. When her teeth start to throb, she swallows pain pills. Last summer, a dentist said it would cost $2,400 to fix her teeth. That’s more than she can afford.
“It’s so expensive,” said Maria, who often works 12-hour days lifting clients in and out of bed and helping them with hygiene, medication management, and housework. “I need money for my kids, for my rent, for transport, for food. Sometimes, there’s nothing left for me.”
KFF Health News connected with Maria through an advocacy organization for immigrant workers. Fearing deportation, she asked that only her first name be used.
Maria is among what the federal government estimates are 2.6 million immigrants living in California without legal status. The state had gradually sought to bring these immigrants into its Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal. But now, facing a state enrollment freeze, low-income California residents in the U.S. without legal permission — along with the providers and community workers that help them — are anxiously weighing the benefits of pushing forward with Medi-Cal applications against the risks of discovery and deportation by the federal government.
Seeking to close a projected $12 billion budget deficit, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed a balanced state budget on June 27 that will end new Medi-Cal enrollment in January 2026 for those over 19 without legal status.
Meanwhile, federal immigration raids — which appear to have targeted at least one health clinic in the state — are already making some people afraid to seek medical care, say immigrant advocates and health providers. And the recent news that Trump administration officials are sharing Medicaid enrollee data, including immigration status, with deportation authorities is expected to further erode trust in the program.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon said the agency, which oversees the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, had the legal authority to share the data to address “unprecedented systemic neglect under the Biden-Harris administration that allowed illegal immigrants to exploit Medicaid while millions of Americans struggle to access care, particularly in states like California.”
Further complicating matters, the Trump administration has threatened to withhold funds from states that provide health coverage to people without legal status. Currently, about 1.6 million people in the country without authorization are enrolled in Medi-Cal.
In 2016, California began opening Medi-Cal to low-income people lacking legal status, starting with children, then gradually expanded it to young people, older adults, and — in January 2024 — those ages 26 to 49. The state Department of Health Care Services, which oversees Medi-Cal, partnered with community health clinics to help get eligible people enrolled.
It’s too early to tell what impact the latest state and federal developments are having on enrollment numbers, since data is available only through March. But many health care providers and advocates said they expect a chilling effect on immigrant enrollment.
Seciah Aquino is executive director of the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, which supports community health workers — also called promotores — who help spread awareness about Medi-Cal’s expansion to adults lacking legal status. Just over half of public health insurance recipients in California are Latino, compared with just 30% of Medicaid enrollees nationwide.
Aquino said her coalition will tell promotores to disclose data-sharing risks so community members can make informed decisions.
“They take it very personally that advice that they provided to a fellow community member could now hurt them,” Aquino said.
Newsom condemned the data sharing, calling the move “legally dubious,” while U.S. Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, both Democrats, have demanded that the Department of Homeland Security destroy any data shared.
California’s Department of Health Care Services announced June 13 that it is seeking more information from the federal government. The agency said it submitted monthly reports to CMS with demographic and eligibility information, including name and address, as required by law.
Medicaid enrollee data from Illinois, Washington state, and Washington, D.C., was also reportedly shared with DHS. Jamie Munks, a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, the state’s Medicaid agency, said the department was “deeply concerned” by the news and that the data was regularly passed along to CMS with the understanding that it was protected.
In Sacramento, Democratic lawmakers found themselves in the uncomfortable position of rolling back health benefits for low-income residents with unsatisfactory immigration status, including people without legal status, people who’ve held green cards for under five years, and some others who are in the process of applying for legal status or have statuses meant to protect them from deportation. In addition to the Medi-Cal enrollment freeze for immigrants 19 and older in the country without authorization, all enrolled residents with unsatisfactory immigration status from 19 to 59 years old will be charged $30 monthly premiums starting in July 2027.
“What I’m hearing on the ground is folks are telling me they’re going to have a really hard time making these premium payments,” said Carlos Alarcon, health and public benefits policy analyst with the California Immigrant Policy Center, an advocacy group. “The reality is most people already have limited budgets.”
The legislature rejected a proposal from the governor to bar immigrants with unsatisfactory immigration status from receiving long-term nursing home and in-home care through Medi-Cal but went along with eliminating dental benefits starting in July 2026.
Health care providers said that without Medi-Cal coverage, many immigrants will be forced to seek emergency care, which is more expensive for taxpayers than preventive and primary-level care. Sepideh Taghvaei, chief dental officer at Santa Cruz County’s Dientes Community Dental Care, saw this play out in 2009 when the state cut adult Medi-Cal dental benefits. Patients came in with swollen faces and excruciating pain, with conditions so advanced that they required hospital treatment. “It’s not cost-effective,” she said.
State Sen. Roger Niello, a Republican who serves as vice chair of the Senate budget committee, said he believes California shouldn’t be funding Medi-Cal for people who lack legal status, particularly given the state’s fiscal challenges. He also said he worries that coverage of people in the country without authorization could encourage others to move to California.
“If we maintain that expense to the noncitizen,” he said, “we’re going to have to cut someplace else, and that’s undoubtedly going to affect citizens.”
Californians, too, are going through a change of heart. In a May poll conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California, 58% of adults opposed the benefit.
For Maria, shifting health care policies have left her feeling paralyzed. Since she arrived here five years ago, the caregiver’s focus has been on earning money to support her three children, whom she left with her parents in her home country, she said.
Maria didn’t learn she might be eligible for Medi-Cal until earlier this year and hadn’t yet found time to complete the paperwork. After a friend told her that the state could freeze enrollment in January, she began rushing to finish the sign-up process. But then she learned that Medi-Cal data had been shared with immigration authorities.
“Disappointed and scared” was how she described her reaction.
Suddenly, she said, enrolling in Medi-Cal doesn’t seem like a good idea.
Claudia Boyd-Barrett wrote this story for KFF Health News.
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