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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

OR Bill Corrects Food-Aid Exclusion for Immigrant Communities

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Tuesday, May 9, 2023   

Legislation in Salem would extend food assistance to Oregonians in immigrant communities. Federal law excludes people who are undocumented from programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the country's largest food-assistance plan.

Aldo Solano, strategic partnerships manager with Oregon Food Bank, is a DACA recipient and has personal experience with this exclusion. His parents were farmworkers and he says as a kid he found out about SNAP, so he told his mom about it.

"I asked her why don't we apply for this program that seems to be helping other people who are struggling to buy food? And my mom was like, 'Well, mijo, we can't do that because we don't have any papers so we don't qualify for that type of assistance.' That really painted, honestly, my entire worldview from there on forward," he explained.

The Food for All Oregonians bill would extend aid to lawful permanent residents, U.S. Compacts of Free Association citizens and other Oregonians who arrived as immigrants or refugees. It is currently in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Solano added food insecurity has increased especially as pandemic aid has gone away and the price of food has gone up.

"People like farmworkers that are out there now picking crops and making sure that people have food, they don't have access to food assistance," he continued. "It's wrong and it's not acceptable."

He added this legislation could help provide aid to about 62,000 Oregonians.

"In Oregon, we have an opportunity to be able to fill in some of the gaps that the federal government just kind of refuses to do so, honestly," he said.

Solano is co-manager of the Food for All Oregonians campaign. He said the group is holding a virtual advocacy day on May 18th.


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