CA migrant workers delay medical care during Trump’s immigration crackdown

For many migrant and immigrant farmworkers in California who do not have legal status, mobile medical clinics are their only access to health care. But as President Donald Trump’s administration continues its crackdown on immigrants, vulnerable farmworker patients are delaying care out of fears of deportation.

As CalMatters’ Larry Valenzuela explains in a visual essay, immigrant farmworkers are often uninsured and suffer from high rates of hypertension, diabetes and high cholesterol. The only health care providers this hard-to-reach population can access are often rural health teams that travel in pop-up medical clinics.

But since Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement activity, UC San Francisco has reported a 36% drop in the number of visitors to its mobile clinics. Without preventative care, however, people will inevitably get sicker — which costs more money and can overwhelm the health system, said Dr. Kenny Banh, UCSF mobile health clinic director.

• Banh: “People don’t disappear because you changed policy. They still need care. What you’re doing is delaying care until the outcomes are worse, and there’s not much you can do but hospitalize the patient.”

Dr. Arianna Crediford, chief resident physician with Fresno St. Agnes Rural Mobile Health, said visits to its van have dropped by as much as 20% this year. 

• Crediford: “The idea that people have to be scared to receive health care is heartbreaking. … We’re the last line of defense that they’re able to go to besides emergency rooms when they come in with an actual life-threatening event.”

This is just one of a handful of other examples of decreasing health access for California immigrants who are in the country without authorization. After Trump’s budget bill passed in July, California counties are bracing for health cuts that they say will make it harder for them to continue programs serving distinct populations, such as rural farmworkers. In the latest state budget, California lawmakers also froze new Medi-Cal enrollment for immigrants without legal status.

Read more here.

Federal policy changes related to student visas have driven down the number of new international students enrolling in U.S. colleges — a change that could have a major effect on California, which has the most international students, report Aliza Imran and Kahani Malhotra of CalMatters’ College Journalism Network.

The Trump administration earlier this year revoked thousands of student visas. Though most visas were reinstated by April following lawsuits, the experience caused anxiety and distrust among some international students CalMatters spoke to. Stricter federal policies regarding who can live and work in the U.S. from abroad are also exacerbating concerns. 

The number of new international students enrolling in American colleges and universities in the 2025-26 academic year declined by 17%, according to the Institute of International Education. Over 1.1 million international students studied in the U.S. during the last academic year and of those students, over 140,000, or 12.5%, studied in California. 

Not only do foreign students help drive scientific research and advancement in the U.S. — they also bring in money for California’s public universities. Scenario modeling from the Association of International Educators showed that a projected 15% decline in international student enrollment this academic year in California could result in the state losing more than $1 billion in revenue from the tuition and living expenses foreign students must pay.

Read more here.

The Democratic Party is facing intra-party clashes in California as younger challengers seek to unseat longtime Democratic incumbents in the U.S. House of Representatives, following significant election losses during last year’s presidential race, writes CalMatters’ Maya C. Miller.

A crop of young candidates in three of California’s deep blue districts are arguing that the Democratic party needs to offer voters candidates who have bold new ideas and can energize the party’s base — instead of aging incumbents entrenched in Washington’s insider culture.

In Sacramento, City Councilmember Mai Vang, 40, is running against 10-term Rep. Doris Matsui, 81. Vang told CalMatters that “status quo politics isn’t going to protect our communities,” and that she decided to run because “we need leaders who can meet the moment.”

But Matsui said she still has much more work to do in Congress, and that the relationships she’s built over 20 years in Washington are vital in helping her serve the public.

• Matsui: “Once you’re in Congress, you have to learn how to govern, too. We cannot just throw everything out and start over again.”

Read more here.

If you’re still hungry for Thanksgiving leftovers, have a second helping of recent CalMatters stories you may have missed over the holiday:

• As the harvest season comes to a close, explore the looming question of whether migrant and undocumented immigrants — vital to California’s Central Valley — will return next year.
• A check-in with immigration enforcement officers landed a San Diego pedicab driver from Turkey in detainment — a situation more immigrants are experiencing under the current Trump administration, advocates say.
• The Trump administration is suing California to block its policy of offering in-state tuition to immigrant students who do not have legal status. Learn more about the lawsuit, which the California Department of Justice said it is prepared to challenge.