Packard Under Fire for Alien Crime Claims

Like two other North County politicians before him, Rep. Ron Packard is hip deep in an emotional controversy after blaming illegal aliens for a rise in crime and calling for a federal crackdown.

Two dozen members of the newly formed North County Coalition for Human Resources held a press conference Thursday outside Packard’s district office to decry the Carlsbad Republican’s recent statement that crime by illegal aliens in North County has reached crisis proportions.

The Rev. Rafael Martinez said the coalition is being organized to educate the public about immigration and the Latino community and to oppose politicians who insist on linking aliens and crime.

Martinez, pastor of Solana Beach Presbyterian Church and director of the North County Chaplaincy, said Packard and other politicians are pandering to a conservative electorate and spreading fear rather than solving the problems of homelessness and poor health care associated with illegal aliens.

“Packard is trying to ingratiate himself with the conservative element in the community which sees the problem in this manner--that aliens bring crime,” Martinez said. “He’s trying to be their boy rather than face facts that the vast majority of aliens are docile, hard-working family men.”

A tense exchange between coalition member Ronald Schiffrin and Packard aide John Weil on the steps of Packard’s office Thursday reflected the political split in North County over illegal aliens.

Earlier, Packard staff members had called Carlsbad police after coalition members filed into Packard’s office near the Palomar Airport in Carlsbad.

“We think what Packard has done is a cheap shot, an exercise in Mexican-bashing,” said Schiffrin, a retired printer from New Jersey now living in La Costa. “The easiest thing in the world to do is bash poor people who don’t vote and can’t fight back.”

Replied Weil: “We’re not bashing anyone, but you haven’t read the letters we’ve received from constituents who are afraid of what’s going on.”

After the confrontation ended peacefully, Weil, who joined Packard’s staff seven months ago, told reporters that Packard receives an estimated 10 to 15 letters a week from constituents concerned about illegal aliens, with complaints ranging from vandalism and harassment to stealing mail.

He said some elderly residents of mobile home parks located next to farmland are afraid to venture out alone. He declined to release the letters, saying a letter to a congressman should be considered confidential.

The coalition press conference was prompted by Packard’s call last week for a task force to be formed among local and federal officials to tackle illegal alien crime.

Packard also said he is considering a request for increased Border Patrol sweeps in North County to remove the hundreds of illegal aliens who line major arteries such as Encinitas Boulevard and El Camino Real daily looking for work as day laborers.

“We expected a backlash,” Weil said. “It’s obvious. It’s an emotionally charged issue regardless of what side you’re on. But I don’t think anyone disagrees with the idea of protecting both the citizens and the aliens from those who would victimize them.”

As a border county, the presence of illegal aliens is felt throughout San Diego County. But increased numbers and visibility in North County, particularly the coastal section, have made for mounting edginess.

A task force report for the Encinitas City Council last fall noted that much of the concern by homeowners arises from a trend among aliens to wait on major streets rather than go directly to the fields.

” . . . Their presence at streetsides and shopping malls is seen as incongruous by the relatively upscale Anglo majority in Encinitas,” the report said.

Homeowners do not have the similar level of concern about illegal aliens who live in apartments or motels and have regular jobs, a group labeled by the task force report as “the ‘invisible,’ or at least less visible, unauthorized aliens residing within the city.”

Heated Debate

The Encinitas report--still the subject of heated debate--also indicated a disproportionately high burglary and armed robbery arrest rate for illegal aliens in Encinitas, Del Mar and Solana Beach, areas that are patrolled by the Sheriff’s Department station in Encinitas.

Packard, in a telephone interview from Washington, said he called for the regional task force after being told by local government and law enforcement leaders that the new Immigration Reform Act is not curing the problem of crime by illegal aliens. He said he hoped his critics would join the task force.

“We need help from the entire community, including Hispanics,” Packard said. “I had no intent to slur the Hispanic people. I’ve worked with them my whole life and employed them my whole life. I have nothing but good feelings toward them. But we’ve got a problem, and I’m looking for solutions.”

Packard, who is seeking his fourth term, also disagreed with the idea that he can gain political advantage from the alien issue.

“This is a lose-lose situation politically,” Packard said. “People are crying for something to be done. We’ve reached the point where we have to do something. I’m struggling for solutions.

“I would prefer help rather than being hammered. What sort of representative would I be if I walked away from a problem because it was a political hot potato?”

Coalition members said they favored a crackdown on crime but opposed illegal aliens being singled out as if they are a primary cause of crime, rather than just one contributing element.

“All of the criminal element should be caught and punished, but to segregate by nationality rings close to a broad ethnic slur,” said the group’s statement, read by Schiffrin.

The reaction to Packard’s comments was similar to that brought on by Supervisor Susan Golding in May, 1986, and supervisorial candidate Clyde Romney in October, 1986. Both Golding and Romney backed down after being challenged on their facts and motives by Latino groups.

Golding had called a press conference to urge the county Board of Supervisors to sue the federal government to recover millions of dollars spent by the county to arrest illegal aliens and also provide social services for them.

She said citizens were being shortchanged with unfixed roads and overflowing sewers, as well as cutbacks in other services, because the county was being forced to increase its law enforcement budget to fight alien crime.

To bolster her assertion, she presented figures that proved to be inaccurate, saying, for example, that half of people arrested in Escondido were illegal aliens, whereas the real figure proved to be 13%.

In the resulting furor, Golding withdrew her lawsuit suggestion. She also moved to heal any political breech with the Latino community. Golding’s supervisorial district includes the northern half of San Diego, as well as Del Mar, Solana Beach and Cardiff.

In the months after Golding’s retreat, Escondido attorney Romney, a former top aide to Packard, turned to the issue of illegal aliens and crime during his campaign against John MacDonald for the North County seat on the Board of Supervisors.

At a press conference near a Carlsbad elementary school, Romney asserted that North County is plagued by gangs of illegals “that line our streets, shake down our schoolchildren, spread diseases like malaria and roam our neighborhoods, looking for work or homes to rob.”

He sent a telegram to Harold Ezell, western regional commissioner for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Romney was easily defeated by MacDonald and after the election he offered an apology for his campaign rhetoric.

Packard drew a distinction between his comments and those of his former aide.

“That was entirely different,” Packard said. “I think Clyde almost unwittingly used words that were inflammatory. I don’t think I have, really. I don’t refer to them always as undocumented because I’m not always conscious of the terminology.

“I know some find the term illegal alien derogatory but I don’t think I’ve said anything racist or inflammatory.”

The Golding and Romney examples have not been forgotten.

“In the case of both Susan Golding and Romney, they both backtracked when confronted with the facts,” said Ozzie I. Venzor, president of the Encinitas-based Friends of the Undocumented. “We don’t want politicians to be able to falsely associate Latinos with crime.”

The North County Coalition for Human Resources, in its criticism of Packard, said it hopes that Packard is not a racist but added that his comments “certainly lead one to believe he is pursuing that level of rhetoric.”

The group said Packard “should not use illegal aliens as pawns in a political ploy to set himself up as a law-and-order man in the community.”

Coalition member Dennis Meehan, a real estate agent in Carlsbad, said Packard is merely setting the stage for more election-year publicity when the Border Patrol opens its station in San Marcos.

“Packard is really creating his own crisis so he can later be seen as acting to solve it when the new Border Patrol station opens,” said Meehan. “It’s much easier to take cheap shots than to truly solve a problem. He knows sweeps don’t work. If sweeps actually worked, the economy of North County would be shut down.”

Packard said he has no plans to withdraw his call for a task force.

“My motives are pure,” he said. “I used the word ‘crisis,’ and maybe that was not a well-chosen word. For that, I apologize. But I just can’t back away from what my constituents see as a major problem.”