Conferees Cut $555 Million in Immigrant Aid Funds for States

Overcoming strong opposition from California and other heavily affected states, House and Senate negotiators agreed Wednesday to cut $555 million from a fund set up to help newly legal immigrants obtain permanent U.S. residency.

A House-Senate conference committee agreed to make available just $445 million of the $1 billion that previously had been authorized for fiscal 1990, which began Sunday.

For California, which has the largest number of immigrants, the decision means the loss of about $320 million in federal funds.

The negotiators from the House and Senate Appropriations committees agreed also to scuttle a Senate-approved amendment that would have restored the funds in fiscal 1991.

‘Better Than Nothing’

However, in a compromise that one California legislative aide described as inadequate but “better than nothing,” the conference committee informally consented to a proposal by Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) to restore the money in 1992.

“There is still no assurance that we’ll get the money back, but at least this shifts the burden to them to prove that we won’t need the money then,” Berman said. He added that he expects the conference committee to formally approve the compromise today.

Other California lawmakers denounced the outcome as a “theft” and a “rip-off” of funds already committed to the states.

“They have raided the cookie jar,” Rep. Edward R. Roybal (D-Los Angeles) declared. “This is a rip-off of the states and means that the federal government is reneging on its commitment to us.”

But Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), arguing in favor of cutting the funds, said that the immigrant assistance program is overfunded and has been running a surplus. Of the $2 billion appropriated in 1988 and 1989, he said, $1.6 billion has not been distributed to the states.

Part of the money authorized for the program, Harkin said, should be devoted to some of the other health, education and welfare programs competing for scarce funds.

“We will meet the requirements of California, Texas and the other states,” Harkin said. “We have to by law. But there’s no sense in leaving that money in there if it’s not being spent.”

In California, government and school officials were assessing expected losses and the impact of the cuts. Although it is still too early to tell how the cuts will ultimately affect services, they “will most likely” be absorbed by educational programs, said Richard Epstein, special assistant to the California secretary of health and welfare, who administers the federal funds.

Epstein said that, although English and civics classes for amnesty applicants are important, they are not mandated under state law as are such programs as MediCal and health services for the indigent.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has provided classes for more than 267,000 amnesty applicants so far and expects to serve nearly 200,000 more before the end of the program, administrators expressed concern over the future of their program.

The school district will continue to offer classes, but it may have to do so at a reduced level, said Domingo Rodriguez, the district’s amnesty program coordinator.

Rodriguez said that the reductions may entail crowding students into large classes, limiting students to the minimum 40-hour course and denying enrollment to those applying for amnesty under the law’s provision for agricultural workers, which does not require that applicants know English.

“People may come to L.A. Unified (School District) and other providers next spring and find that many will be turned away,” he said.

For the moment, state and local officials say, there is enough money to get by until next year.

“If no one is screaming bloody murder yet,” Epstein said, it is because the state has been able to carry over unspent funds allocated in 1988 and 1989.

Can ‘Limp Through’

“We may be able to limp through for a year or so before we make severe cuts in education and other programs,” he said. “But, by 1991, we will feel the full effect (of the cuts).”

The $555 million was cut from a $1-billion-a-year, four-year fund established in 1986, when Congress granted amnesty to an estimated 3 million illegal aliens.

Congress designed the grants to help states provide government services such as language training, medical treatment and job placement to the flood of illegal aliens coming out of hiding to take advantage of the amnesty program. California, home to 58% of the newly legal aliens, was allocated 58 cents of each dollar appropriated.

Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) called the surplus “a phantom” stemming from confusion and red tape at the federal level that have meant long delays in reimbursement to the states for money they have spent.

In fiscal 1988, for example, reimbursement claims in Alameda County totaled $1.6 million. But, as of last month, only $336,000 had been paid by the federal government, according to figures compiled by Berman’s office.

Conference committee members who supported the cuts argued that the original congressional appropriation for the program was, in Harkin’s words, “way too much.” Even with the $555-million cut, they said, the states will still have $1.9 billion available to them in fiscal 1990.

Berman conceded that California and other states with large illegal alien populations, including Texas, Florida and Illinois, should still have enough federal funds to meet 1990 commitments. California will not be shortchanged, he said, if Congress provides the full $1 billion in 1991 and restores the $555 million in 1992.

Staff writer Marita Hernandez in Los Angeles contributed to this story.