"I am proud as governor to be the first state to announce a program for direct disaster assistance to those individuals", Newsom said. "We're putting up $75 million in partnership with philanthropy... they're putting in an additional $50 million to support our efforts."
Newsom added that the funding would be used to provide some 150,000 undocumented individuals with up to $500 in assistance and undocumented families with up to $1,000 in assistance. He said these illegal immigrants were not eligible to benefit from the federal stimulus package approved by Congress.
The Disaster Relief Fund, which is to provide cash to local illegal migrants, will include $75 million of taxpayer money and another $50 million from charity organizations, a group of which has already made a total contribution of $5.5 million.
The aid package also proposes expanding health benefits, which were provided in 2019 by the state's authorities to illegal migrants aged 25 and younger and seniors aged 65 and older.
The United States has more than 605,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and nearly 27,000 deaths related to the disease, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention data shows.
