California is spending millions of dollars on a program that provides free solar panels, refrigerators, and windows to “low-income” farmworkers, including illegal immigrants.
The initiative, called the Farmworker Housing Component of the Low-Income Weatherization Program, is part of California’s sprawling, multibillion-dollar “cap-and-trade” system, which taxes carbon producers and redistributes approximately $3 billion per year to energy programs and left-wing social causes—all under the banner of fighting “climate change.”
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Since 2019, California’s government has earmarked $49 million for the farmworker program, which operates through an opaque web that includes a government agency, nonprofit providers, and private contractors. California’s Department of Community Services and Development selected La Cooperativa Campesina de California, a nonprofit that serves farmworkers, to administer the program. La Cooperativa, in turn, has partnered with a for-profit, “minority owned” company, MAROMA Energy Services, to help run the program. Contractors do the work of installing solar panels and other appliances.
These organizations have heavily advertised the program to California’s nearly 900,000 agricultural workers, half to three-quarters of whom are illegal immigrants. In its official documentation, California’s Department of Community Services and Development acknowledges that non-citizens are eligible for the program and that they even accept identification from foreign governments.
In a Spanish-language radio broadcast, Natalie Velores, a program manager for MAROMA, confirmed that participants do not need “legal status” in the United States and can use a matrìcula consular, a common form of identification that the Mexican consulate provides to migrants who have crossed the border, to apply.
“We only require an ID,” Velores said. “It doesn’t need to be from this state, or [the] United States.”
Beneficiaries work hard to loop laborers into the system. A contractor for John Harrison Contracting—a California-based “Minority Business Enterprise” and Farmworker Housing Component subcontractor—would drive “hundreds of miles a day” across Southern California, trying to persuade farmworkers to sign up for the program, Inside Climate News previously reported. One challenge was to convince workers that the program was not a scam. The other challenge, after the Trump administration increased ICE raids, was finding potential clients, many of whom “stopped showing up to job sites.”
We spoke with MAROMA customer service representative Ángel Quintanilla, who confirmed that the company had provided solar panels for illegal immigrants. “You don’t need to have documentation,” Quintanilla said. “They ask for their pay stub and a form of their income and, of course, the gas and the electricity bill.”
Despite a $49 million budget and nearly seven years of operation, the farmworker “weatherization” program has only provided services to about 2,000 families. That means the State of California has allocated roughly $23,000 per household for its program to provide free solar panels, refrigerators, and other services—a number that raises serious concerns about financial accountability.
One problem: the same man, Mauricio Blanco, seems to be connected to entities at multiple stages in the flow of funds. Blanco worked as a project manager for La Cooperativa Campesina de California, which has been awarded at least $10.7 million by the state; is currently listed as an executive of MAROMA Energy Services, which has been granted nearly $34 million from La Cooperativa for “weatherization” services since 2017; and is CEO of John Harrison Contracting, a firm that appears to have done much of the solar installation work. He acknowledged but did not address our request for comment.
We sent the California Department of Community Services an extensive list of questions for this story. A spokesman told us that the Farmworker Housing Component helps “vulnerable and disadvantaged communities” keep their homes temperate year-round, has saved the equivalent of more than 20,000 metric tons of carbon, and “contributes to the state’s climate investment and priority population goals.” He did not deny that the program had funded services for illegal immigrants.
California’s political leaders initially pitched the cap-and-trade program, and initiatives like low-income farmworker weatherization, as a way to fight “climate change.” In reality, however, these programs seem designed to do something else: keep the cash flowing through the state’s web of government agencies, nonprofit providers, and private contractors. Installing solar panels on some 2,000 homes will do almost nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—but it will line the pockets of a few connected people who know to repeat the platitudes and pull the levers of power.