Activists Vow to Fight HUD Ruling on Illegals : Social policy: Rights advocates believe decision in Costa Mesa case will be rejected by courts. They say withholding grants will only further polarize groups.

Southern California immigrant rights advocates vowed Friday to fight any attempts by cities to withhold federal grant money from programs that aid illegal aliens, saying the efforts will only heighten already growing animosity toward undocumented workers.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development said Thursday that the city of Costa Mesa can enact a policy denying funds to charities and other groups if they refuse to bar illegal aliens from their programs.

Immigrant rights attorneys denounced the HUD opinion as “legal chicanery” and predicted that attempts by Costa Mesa to enforce such a policy would be quickly overturned in the courts.

“I think it would be an easy case,” said Vibiana Andrade, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles. “It is clearly a misinterpretation of immigration statutes. The HUD opinion is creating new eligibility requirements for services and delegating to the cities the right to create those new requirements. If (cities) enact a policy like this, they are violating federal law.”

City officials in Costa Mesa had rescinded the policy, initially passed last summer, pending HUD’s review. But upon receiving the legal opinion from HUD General Counsel Frank Keating, city officials declared they will seek to have the policy reinstituted.

Immigrant rights advocates said the conflict in Costa Mesa is only the latest indication of a growing friction in Southern California between long-established residents, many of them Anglo, and the immigrants arriving steadily from Latin America and Asia.

“We clearly see a siege mentality developing among certain residents and communities that have been heavily impacted by immigration,” said Linda Wong, president of California Tomorrow, a group studying how the state is handling its ever-greater ethnic diversity.

“Some people have the perception that they are losing control over their communities because of the large influx of newcomers. . . . The changes are occurring at such a pace that people don’t have the time or psychological abilities to adjust. A lot of them feel that they’re strangers in their own land.”

Despite their belief that the opinion does not pass constitutional muster, many immigrants rights advocates voiced fears that the ruling will spark similar efforts in other cities trying to deal with large immigrant populations.

Sister Kristan Schlichte, executive director of Catholic Charities of Orange County, said: “If some city that we do work with were to institute that ruling, then I would not do business with that city. I’m responsible for carrying out the mission of the Catholic Church relative to serving people who are in need, and immigration status isn’t part of the criteria for helping people who are hurting.”

In the opinion issued to Costa Mesa officials Thursday, HUD general counsel Keating raised the possibility that the agency might adopt such a policy for all of its programs, but Keating said Friday that no decision is pending.

“If the intent of Congress is clear and it is brought to our attention that HUD grant funds should be restricted to citizens, we would change the policy,” Keating said. “However, we have not begun a review at this time.”

Keating said he based his opinion on a reading of immigration reform laws, which provide that aliens granted lawful temporary resident status are not eligible to receive benefits from federal financial assistance programs for five years.

“While the . . . legislative history is silent with respect to assistance benefits to aliens who remain as illegal aliens,” Keating wrote in the Costa Mesa opinion, “. . . we think it safe to assume . . . that it was not the intent of Congress to allow illegal aliens benefits not legally available to those who come forward under the amnesty program.”

However, Keating agreed that restrictions of federal grant money to children might be a question of “special constitutional sensitivity.”

Jose Roberto Juarez, regional counsel and director of the immigrants’ civil rights program for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, noted that the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 1982 Texas case, ruled that children of illegal aliens cannot be denied a public education.

“The Supreme Court pointed out that these folks are in this country already, and if you exclude them from the schools, the only thing you accomplish is create a pool of uneducated people who cannot contribute to this country,” he said. “Similarly, if you are talking about excluding undocumented aliens from homeless shelters or other social service agencies, you’re just really cutting your nose off to spite your face.”

Carlos Holguin, an attorney for the Los Angeles-based Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, questioned how far local governments would take such policies. Would they, for example, also have their police departments or fire departments distinguish between citizens and non-residents?

“Is a firefighter going to ask for someone’s papers before putting out a fire?” he asked. Legal experts described the HUD opinion as precedent-setting in the scope given to local communities to regulate illegal aliens.

In El Monte, a San Gabriel Valley city of about 100,000 with an estimated illegal alien population of 15,000-25,000, Assistant Community Development Director Juan Mireles said withholding HUD money or any other assistance to illegals would be detrimental to the city’s economy.

Mexican and Central American immigrants “are beneficial to us,” Mireles said Friday. “They help the labor market. They find construction work, restaurant work, gardening jobs, lots of jobs.”

Officials in several cities in Southeast Los Angeles County said they were unaware of the HUD ruling or of the attempt by Costa Mesa to withhold funds from programs that serve illegal aliens. But most said they would resist any effort to pass such a policy.

“It’s immoral,” said Bell Mayor George Cole, who is also the director of a nonprofit agency that receives block grant funds. “When Jesus told us to minister to the sick and feed the poor, he did not say only if they have a green card.”

In cities such as Cudahy and Huntington Park, where the population is predominantly Latino, city leaders readily admit that residents occasionally express resentment toward illegal aliens. But officials say there is no way to easily tell who is an illegal alien, who is a legal resident, who is in some phase of the amnesty program and who is a citizen. They also say it is not their responsibility to find out.

In Cudahy, City Councilman Alex Rodriguez said he believed his colleagues would not mind cracking down on illegal aliens because the city is the third most crowded in Los Angeles County and its services are strained by the continuing influx of immigrants. A policy such as Costa Mesa’s might have the effect of causing the illegals to “move on” faster, he said.

Many immigrants rights advocates said the Costa Mesa policy--and HUD support of it--will only worsen the tensions between immigrant and non-immigrant communities, especially in Southern California.

They point to Costa Mesa as a prime example of the kind of atmosphere created when residents perceive that a particular population is the cause of problems.

Besides the disputed funding policy, the city was the first in Orange County to adopt a stringent day-labor ordinance that not only bans solicitation of work from city streets but makes it a crime to be in certain areas of town with the “intent” to solicit work.

The “intent” portion of the ordinance has been challenged by the ACLU as unconstitutional. A hearing is scheduled in federal court later this month.

Supporters of the measures in this mostly Anglo, middle-class community--home to one of the largest and most exclusive shopping centers in the nation and numerous arts groups--contend that the city has become a mecca for illegal aliens who exploit the community’s social service providers.

“When there are not enough funds for services for legal residents, we should certainly not be disbursing funds to illegals,” said Costa Mesa City Councilman Orville Amburgey, who proposed both the funding policy and the day-worker solicitation ordinance.

“I think we are all aware of persons coming into our borders or the perception that people are streaming across the borders,” countered the ACLU’s Jurado. “As a society the feeling is, ‘This is mine now and anybody new can’t take it away from me.’ The HUD opinion feeds into that feeling.”

Noted Dennis Rockway, senior counsel for the Legal Aid Foundation of Long Beach, which serves mostly poor people including some undocumented immigrants: “None of these are luxury services; they are all basic survival services that effect the well-being of the community at large. This (policy) is an example of the rising tide of racism in Southern California, aimed mostly at Latinos.”

Carla Rivera reported from Orange County, with contributions from Maria Newman and Mary Anne Perez. Staff writers Howard Blume, Irene Chang, Kenneth Garcia, Tina Griego, David Haldane and Deborah Schoch contributed from Los Angeles and Patrick McDonnell contributed from San Diego.