North County Group Meets to Study Illegal Alien Issues

Eager to ease the impact of the booming illegal alien population in North County, a special regional study group met Monday for the first time and set a slate of topics it hopes to address during the next four months.

More than two dozen city, county and federal officials gathered at the Carlsbad office of Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad), who is spearheading the committee.

After an hour of discussion, the group settled on four prime areas of study: the fiscal impact of aliens on public health, law enforcement and social services; the effect of aliens on crime and the perception of the general community; housing, recreation, education and employment; and general amnesty issues as well as the integration of the immigrants into society.

Packard said he hopes the group will be able to go beyond efforts of area cities such as Encinitas and Carlsbad, which have conducted similar studies of the situation. The committee, he said, should be able to “pull the various agencies together where we can look at it from the bigger perspective.”

Supervisor John MacDonald and San Marcos Mayor Lee Thibadeau will serve as co-chairmen of the group, which also includes Ozzie Venzor and the Rev. Rafael Martinez, two area Latino leaders who blasted Packard when he recommended formation of a task force in February. At the time, Packard proposed that the task force simply study crime by illegal aliens, saying it had nearly reached a crisis stage.

MacDonald said he hopes the group can formulate solutions during the next 120 days that will be “realistic and humanistic.” Venzor, meanwhile, was less optimistic, saying the committee may be able to “clarify the criminal issue, which up to this point has been exaggerated.”