Gavin Newsom's free healthcare for illegal aliens drove his state’s Medicaid into insolvency and cost California taxpayers $23 billion.
Now undercover investigators walked into California welfare offices to find out who the system was actually built for.
What California welfare workers said about citizens on camera is the one thing Newsom cannot take back.
How California Welfare Officers Explained Medi-Cal Benefits for Illegal Aliens
City Journal investigators visited four public-services offices across Southern California.
They weren't turned away.
Caseworkers sat down and walked them through exactly how California hands taxpayer money to illegal aliens.
A welfare officer in Glendale steered them straight to the Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants – CAPI – a state-funded monthly payment program for low-income elderly and disabled illegal aliens.
"If [you are] a citizen, you cannot get CAPI," he said. "I don't care about legal or not. Not being [a] citizen [is the key]."
In Los Angeles, the same logic applied to CalWORKs, California's version of the federal welfare program for families. Illegal alien parents can't qualify themselves, but they can collect payments on behalf of any U.S.-born child.
"If you were born here and the child was born here, you get money for two," a Los Angeles welfare officer explained. "Because she is not and the child is, she only gets money for the child, and not for her."
Stack up the programs available to a typical mixed-status household and the total clears $100,000 a year – more than most California families earn before taxes, and entirely funded by those same families.
https://twitter.com/christopherrufo/status/2102765171479568630
Newsom Drove Medi-Cal to Insolvency with $23 Billion in Illegal Alien Healthcare
Newsom didn't hide any of this. He went on a podcast and bragged about his "controversial" decision to extend full Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, coverage to illegal aliens.
His wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, promoted the California Earned Income Tax Credit on behalf of a program whose materials assure applicants that "no Social Security number" is "no problem."
Medi-Cal's illegal alien expansion drew roughly 1.7 million enrollees and now runs the state about $10 billion a year – a figure more than double what California's own budget analysts forecast when Newsom pushed it through.
The U.S. House Budget Committee confirmed California would spend more than $8.4 billion in Medicaid benefits for illegal aliens in a single fiscal year, already more than $5 billion above original estimates.
Then the program went broke.
Rep. Kevin Kiley confirmed on the House floor that Newsom's Medi-Cal expansion burned through $23 billion over two years and drove the program into insolvency, forcing the state to take out emergency loans to keep it alive.
Newsom's response: freeze new illegal alien enrollment and tack on a $100 monthly premium for remaining enrollees. His office blamed the collapse entirely on what they called the "Trump Slump" – a crisis his own expansion created.
The shadow welfare system runs well beyond healthcare. Newsom signed legislation removing the Social Security number requirement from California LifeLine, the program that provides free phones and cell service. The state's Low Cost Auto Insurance Program explicitly advertises subsidized coverage to illegal alien drivers "regardless of immigration status."
City Journal investigators watched cellphone providers pitch federally subsidized LifeLine plans inside Los Angeles welfare offices, with representatives explaining that a Mexican consular identification card is sufficient to enroll.
In total, California spent at least $11 billion subsidizing illegal aliens in the last fiscal year alone – and the programs are still expanding.
How California Built a Taxpayer Funded Welfare System That Excludes Its Own Citizens
None of this happened by accident.
Federal law – specifically the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act – bars illegal aliens from most federally funded public benefits.
California's response was methodical: build parallel state-funded programs, open them without citizenship requirements, and finance them by taxing the citizens who are legally barred from using them.
The state even created a legal workaround for foreign nationals too old or disabled to face deportation. California classifies them as "permanently residing under color of law" – a designation that unlocks Medi-Cal, CAPI, and other programs for elderly foreign nationals the moment they settle in the state.
California built a retirement system for foreign nationals and handed citizens the invoice.
More than one in four California residents is now foreign-born. That is not an accident. It is what happens when a state builds a $11 billion magnet and leaves the bill on the kitchen table of every working family paying into it.
Gavin Newsom spent years bragging about every piece of this system. Then the money ran out, and he started looking for someone else to blame.
The welfare officers in Glendale and Los Angeles weren't embarrassed. They were transparent, thorough, and helpful.
They had no reason to think anyone would ever care.
Sources:
- Christopher F. Rufo, Kenneth Schrupp, and Austen Hufford, "California's Shadow Welfare System for Illegal Immigrants," City Journal, September 23, 2026.
- "California to Spend $8.4 Billion This Year on Health Care for Illegal Aliens," House Budget Committee, March 26, 2025.
- Fox News Digital, "New Poll Reveals Majority of Californians Oppose Key Benefit for Illegal Immigrants," Fox News, 2025.