Small California Cities Hope to Score Big With Pro Soccer

• The United States is seeing a boom in professional soccer, especially in California. The state is already host to four Major League Soccer teams and three teams in the National Women’s Soccer League. There is also a crop of minor league teams  sprouting up throughout the state, in both big cities and small towns. We’ll take to you to the Southern California city of Lancaster, which hopes to score big with its newest soccer team, AV Alta FC.
• The Trump Administration canceled the social security numbers of roughly 6,000 immigrants. Advocates say the move puts these people in economic limbo, since they wouldn’t be able to obtain legal employment or access any bank services.

As Soccer Kicks Into High Gear Across US, California Cities Hope New Teams Will Help Hit Bigger Goals

Outside of the major league soccer teams that call California home,  cities and towns throughout the Golden State are embracing the benefits of become homes for teams from second-tier leagues. As Oakland was losing the last of its three professional sports teams (The Warriors, Raiders and Athletics), the local sports landscape was reinvigorated by the rise of the Oakland Roots and Oakland Soul, teams in the USL and USL W, respectively. One of California’s newest teams in minor league soccer is down in Lancaster, where AV Alta FC calls home.

There’s hope that the team will be a multi-faceted boon to the Antelope Valley city, the way The Roots and Soul have done in Oakland. The team already treated the sold-out crowd to a 2-0 victory over Westchester FC during the season opener on April 5th at Lancaster Municipal Stadium.

City leaders and residents hope that the new team also means more money coming into the local economy via incoming soccer fans hoping to catch games. Additionally, there’s the goal of making Lancaster a destination to see up-and-coming soccer players that could become stars on the international stage down the line, or even the next players that help lead the US to their first World Cup win.

Trump Administration Hopes Stripping Immigrants of SSNs Will Push Them to Self-Deport

The White House had thousands of immigrants reclassified as deceased, which invalidates their social security numbers, and essentially cuts them off from access to any financial services. This comes at the same time that the Trump administration is laying to ground to give federal taxpayer information to immigration enforcement.

The move has caused alarm among immigration advocates, who say that this undoes years of work getting non-citizens to participate in the economy. The White House is claiming that the thousands of immigrants it stripped of Social Security Numbers were on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist, or they had criminal records, and the Trump administration is hopeful that they will leave the country on their own as a result.