California migrant workers delay medical care amid Trump’s immigration crackdown

For many migrant farmworkers and immigrants 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 vulnerable immigrants farm worker patients delay care for fear 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 has access to are often rural health teams that travel in pop-up medical clinics.

But since Trump aggressive immigration enforcementUC San Francisco reported a 36% drop in the number of visitors to its mobile clinics. Without preventive care, however, people will inevitably get sick — which costs more money and can overburden the health care system, said Dr. Kenny Ban, director of the UCSF Mobile Health Clinic.

• Ban: “People aren’t going away because you’ve 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 except hospitalize the patient.”

Dr. Ariana Crediford, chief resident physician at Fresno St. Agnes Rural Mobile Health, said visits to his van are down as much as 20% this year.

• Crediford: “The idea that people have to be afraid to get health care is heartbreaking. . . . We’re the last line of defense they can go to, other than emergency rooms, when they come in with a real life-threatening event.”

This is just one of several other examples of reduced access to health care for California immigrants who are in the country without authorization. After Trump’s budget bill passed in July, California counties are preparing for health cuts which they believe will make it difficult to continue programs serving particular populations, such as rural agricultural workers. In the latest state budget, California lawmakers did too freeze new Medi-Cal enrollment for immigrants without legal status.

Read more here.

Changes in federal policy related to student visas have reduced the number of new international students enrolling in American colleges — a change that could have a big effect on California, which has the most international studentsreport. College Journalism Network.

The Trump administration earlier this year revoked thousands of student visas. However most visas were reinstated by April after lawsuits, the experience sparked anxiety and mistrust among some international students CalMatters spoke with. Stricter federal policies on who can live and work in the US from abroad also heighten concerns.

The number of new international students enrolled at US colleges and universities in the 2025-26 academic year has dropped by 17%, according to Institute of International Education. Over 1.1 million international students studied in the US during the last academic year, and of those students, over 140,000, or 12.5%, studied in California.

It’s not just international students who help stimulate research and progress in the US – they also bring money to California’s public universities. Modeling scenarios from Association of International Teachers showed that a projected 15 percent drop in international student enrollment this academic year in California could cost the state more than $1 billion in tuition and living costs that international students must pay.

Read more here.

The Democratic Party is facing infighting in California as younger challengers are seeking to unseat longtime Democrats in the US House of Representatives, after significant electoral losses during last year’s presidential race, writes CalMatters’ Maya C. Miller.

A slew of young candidates in three of California’s dark blue districts say 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 inner culture.

In Sacramento, City Councilwoman Mai Wang, 40, is running against 10-year Rep. Doris Matsui, 81. Wang told CalMatters that “status quo politics will not protect our communities” and that she decided to run because “we need leaders who can meet the moment.”

But Matsui said she still has a lot of work to do in Congress and that the relationships she has built over 20 years in Washington are vital to helping her serve the public.

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

Read more here.

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

• As harvest season approaches, explore the looming question of whether migrants and undocumented immigrants—vital to California’s Central Valley— will be back next year.
• Check with immigration officials detains San Diego water taxi driver from Turkey – situation more immigrants experience under the current Trump administration, advocates say.
• The Trump administration is suing California to block its policy of offering in-state tuition to undocumented immigrant students. Learn more about the lawsuit, which the California Department of Justice said it is ready to cause.