Encinitas Split on How to Deal With Migrants

In the beginning, there was the anger. Across Encinitas, dozens of homeowners were expressing increased agitation over problems caused by the illegal aliens living in their midst.

Residents griped about idle migrants strung along busy thoroughfares waiting for work, 50 or 60 at a stretch. They complained about the backcountry cook fires, about aliens defecating in plain view of picture windows.

It was Oct. 1, 1986, and Encinitas had just incorporated as a city. Eager to address problems both large and small, the new City Council decided during its first meeting to tackle the alien situation. A task force was formed, a study commenced. Answers would be found.

Nearly two years later, much of the anger, along with the fear and frustration, remains for many residents. After hundreds of hours of study and many hearings, Encinitas has made little headway in easing the alien impact, a complex predicament that many city officials concede may eclipse their legislative powers.

“If there were a quick fix, we’d like to have it,” Mayor Rick Shea said recently. “But there isn’t. As we deal with illegal aliens today, more come into town tonight, tomorrow, the next day. There’s no way to solve our problems short of turning off the tap on the other end.”

Encinitas is not alone. Municipal governments throughout North County are grappling with the ticklish problem of illegal aliens, but most have, so far, fallen far short of the mark.

In Carlsbad, a task force offered a sweeping set of recommendations to soothe the plight of immigrants while curtailing the sorts of conflicts that irked citizens, but the council last month approved a watered-down package that Latino leaders criticized as not going far enough to ease the situation.

Poway city officials have appointed a Hispanic Relations Committee, but homeowners there continue to express anger over the alien issue. Meanwhile, Vista Mayor Gloria McClellan has held meetings, but no concrete proposals have emerged.

In 1986, the San Marcos City Council instructed its staff to research ways the city could declare itself an “alien-impacted” area, maybe even erecting barricades at the city limits in a desperate plea for federal aid to cope with problems caused by illegals. Nothing ever came of the plan.

Perhaps nowhere in North County, however, have the migrant workers been so visible, the problems so consuming and the search for solutions so fervent as in Encinitas.

Polarized Issue

The debate has been rife with invective. After the task force was formed, it quickly became apparent that the community had become widely polarized. On one side were residents angered by the actions of aliens. On the other stood homeowners more sympathetic to the plight of the migrants.

As Shea and some other city officials see it, the alien problems were as much a matter of perception as reality.

“It’s somewhat a fear of the unknown,” Shea said. “When large numbers of men start hanging around on street corners, people perceive that there’s going to be problems--whether it’s a pack of teen-agers, or Marines in Oceanside or illegal aliens in Encinitas.”

When the task force released a thick, fact-filled report on the impact of aliens on Encinitas in mid-1987, it raised the hackles of many troubled homeowners. In particular, they were angered by the tone of the document, which suggested that the presence of illegal aliens was inevitable because of the severe economic conditions in Latin American countries.

“It is therefore not likely,” the report concludes, “that undocumented workers will disappear from the Encinitas landscape.”

The committee also suggested that, despite the new U.S. immigration law, “some proportion of those seeking work here will continue to settle in camps in open spaces as the most available means for minimizing their costs in the face of employment uncertainties.”

The commission study found that migrants are highly visible in coin laundries, supermarkets and other establishments where they must perform daily household tasks because of their rugged backcountry accommodations.

Impact on Crime

It also noted that illegal aliens may have a significant effect on crime in the community, especially burglaries and armed robberies. The study suggested that 22% to 47% of those arrested for burglary are illegal aliens, as are 34% to 50% of the armed-robbery suspects.

Although the report encouraged the enforcement of laws at alien campsites relating to sanitation and other factors, it also contained several suggestions to ease the squalid conditions. Among the most controversial were provisions for barracks or tent compounds for undocumented workers living in open spaces as well as the establishment of a special banking service, a telephone and mail center, and informational bulletin boards.

Several city leaders, in particular Councilwoman Marjorie Gaines, made it clear that the task force should concern itself with finding solutions to the complaints of residents, not with making Encinitas “a haven for illegals.”

“There are two different philosophies involved here,” Gaines says today. “The idea is to assist the citizens with their problem, not to assist the illegals.”

Putting action behind the words, the council dramatically reined in the task force, adopting a narrow set of guidelines that focused on protecting legal residents and their property while removing job incentives for illegal aliens. One task force member, the Rev. Rafael Martinez, resigned in protest, saying it had become obvious that the city was not willing to look at all sides of the issue.

‘Very Narrow in Focus’

“It quickly became evident to the task force that we were dealing with a very politically restrictive situation,” said Councilwoman Anne Omsted, chairwoman of the group and the city leader most vocally sympathetic to the aliens. “If we wanted to get anything accomplished, it had to be something very narrow in focus.”

In February, the council again came down hard on the task force, this time for the group’s preliminary recommendation that a pamphlet for aliens be drawn up explaining how to safely build campfires, which are illegal in the city. Some council members warned the group to shape up or be disbanded.

Omsted, who had missed the meeting because of illness, responded by calling the council’s outburst “ill-timed ignorance.” Nonetheless, the task force’s final list of recommendations, issued in May, reflected a far tougher stance toward migrant workers.

The proposals included a suggestion that new laws to better regulate substandard dwellings be drafted and a request that owners of large, undeveloped tracts frequented by aliens give permission for the Border Patrol and sheriff’s deputies to enter as needed to enforce the law.

Perhaps the most provocative ideas, however, were for the city to establish a hiring hall for documented workers and to bring on a coordinator to deal with complaints about aliens.

Both Gaines and Omsted agree that the hiring hall, if effectively operated, could dry up job opportunities for illegal aliens, making the city a less attractive destination. But they also worry that the logistics of running such an operation may be tough to work out.

Wider Mandate

Gaines and Omsted differ on the hiring of a coordinator. Although Gaines feels the coordinator should be akin to a trouble-shooter for citizen complaints, Omsted sees a person with a wider mandate.

“A law-and-order type would simply be inappropriate,” Omsted said. “It has got to be someone with a broader approach to the sociological processes. It’s got to be someone who can show some compassion.”

Although Gaines favors some of the task-force proposals, she criticized the group for adopting what she feels was a woebegone attitude.

“I think the sum of the verbiage produced by the task force has tended to encourage people to adopt an apathetic viewpoint,” Gaines said. “They’ve indicated there’s nothing we can do, that illegal immigration is inevitable. I don’t agree with that. When you have a situation that is unacceptable, you shouldn’t throw up your hands and say, ‘There isn’t anything we can do.’ ”

Gaines said she plans to pursue efforts to have the city finance an extra Border Patrol unit in Encinitas, even though the task force said such a proposal was not feasible because the federal agency does not farm out its services to municipalities.

The council is expected to take up the task-force recommendations, which are being pulled together into a comprehensive “action plan” by city staff, during the next few weeks. In the meantime, Gaines and Shea would like to see local authorities press even further.

They expressed hope that a regional task force established earlier this year by Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad) will be able to cull enough data to push federal lawmakers for impact aid to deal with law enforcement, social service and health problems caused by aliens.

But Gaines said even the most stringent bureaucratic steps will not prove effective until residents begin to heed new immigration laws restricting the hiring of illegal aliens.

“When you create a warm and inviting environment for any kind of infection, it gets worse,” Gaines said. “I think when people continue to hire illegals, and people continue to provide food and transportation for them, they have created an environment for more of them to come here.”

Omsted, however, sees it from a different perspective.

“Any American with any get-up-and-go would do the same thing these people have done in coming here to find jobs,” she said. “People who don’t want them here talk about rights in a very legalistic sense. But everyone has a right to live.”