State and federal law
Immigration benefits such as asylum, permanent residence and naturalization involve federal agencies and federal law. State law can separately affect issues such as marriage, divorce and criminal records that become relevant evidence in a federal immigration case. These roles should not be conflated.
Historical demographic context
The 2020 Census counted 39,538,223 residents in California on April 1, 2020. The figure is a dated statewide population count, not an estimate of undocumented residents or immigration case success. Los Angeles and Miami are cities, not interchangeable names for their respective states.
Russian speakers in California
The Census Bureau's American Community Survey for 2020–2024 estimates that 180,186 people age 5 and over speak Russian at home in California (± 5,584), 17.7% of the U.S. total of 1,020,261. 76,033 of them (42.2%) speak English less than “very well”, against 41.4% nationally. 78,310 residents were born in Russia, 68,455 in Ukraine and 11,819 in Belarus. These are survey estimates for population groups and say nothing about any person's immigration status.