Costa Mesa Policy Could Spur Easing of INS Laws

Calling a Costa Mesa funding policy concerning aliens “a blessing in disguise . . . because it alerted everybody to the absurdity” of immigration restrictions, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp told city officials and national Latino rights advocates Wednesday that he will ask Congress to amend provisions of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act.

Kemp called a meeting with officials from Orange County to talk about the national implications of the Costa Mesa policy. Later, as he was leaving to brief White House officials, Kemp said he believes President Bush shares his concern over what the secretary considers inequities in the way the federal government provides aid to immigrants, both legal and illegal.

“The Bush Administration is committed to making sure that laws are not applied in such a way that they are discriminatory--and the way immigration laws are currently working, there is blatant discrimination,” Kemp said.

The White House issued no statements about Kemp’s meeting or whether the President will support attempts to modify current immigration laws.

The Costa Mesa policy--adopted last August and subsequently rescinded--would have denied federal grants administered by the city to public service groups unless they agreed to exclude illegal aliens from their programs.

Kemp said that he expects wide support for easing immigration restrictions “once people get a sense of how counter-productive and counter-intuitive the laws are in their treatment of people.”

“What we are trying to do is fashion a ruling that lets the (Immigration and Naturalization Service) be responsible for borders . . . and does not require that social service groups be agents of the federal government,” he added.

Last week, Kemp suspended a ruling issued by his general counsel that supported the Costa Mesa policy. The official held that the policy did not appear to violate federal anti-discrimination guidelines. Kemp also stayed HUD regulations that took effect on June 1 that prohibited immigrants who have been granted temporary residency from benefiting from some HUD assistance programs for five years.

Kemp said he was concerned about the inconsistencies that, for example, barred a legal resident from receiving child care or a job under HUD-funded community development block grant programs but allowed such benefits under other federal assistance programs.

He also said he was concerned that the Costa Mesa measure could set a precedent, with other cities attempting to enact similar restrictive funding policies.

Rep. C. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), who also attended Wednesday’s meeting, echoed those concerns and said “all participants agreed that cities are not equipped to be INS enforcers.”

“When enforcement guidelines are decided, they will be issued at the federal level and will apply to all cities,” he said.

Kemp and officials from Orange County will meet again to discuss specific guidelines next Thursday.

Cox said that participants also agreed that emergency services “ought to be treated separately.”

“In the case of someone who is severly hurt and needs medical attention, do we put them on hold while checking for their status?” he asked. “Yet, taking current laws and regulations to their extreme, that is what would result.”

Cox, who has supported modifying some immigration restrictions, said he will move to enact some of the changes when Congress takes up another immigration matter--whether to increase quotas for lawful immigration--in the next few weeks.

“I think it would be germane to amend (immigration law) to include the kinds of reforms that Kemp is asking for,” he said.

Nativo Lopez, director of the Santa-Ana based Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, said his group would support efforts to repeal immigration laws that deny benefits to legal residents “either legislatively or administratively.”

And Mario Moreno, a representative of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said it is important that community groups not be made an arm of the INS.

“Our concern is that the determination of legal status is not an easy thing even for an expert,” Moreno said. “It would be even more difficult to leave that in the hands of someone--like a receptionist--who is not trained to make that determination.”

Costa Mesa Mayor Peter Buffa, who with City Manager Allan Roeder represented the city, called the meeting “very productive.” However, he voiced concern that the city still has no clear-cut direction on whether it can require community groups to adhere to immigration laws when providing services. The city has approved applications for more than $114,000 in federal grants that are scheduled to be distributed in October.

“Our objective is to have some kind of statement in place that refers to compliance with federal immigration laws,” Buffa said. “Exactly how that is phrased is of great concern to HUD. We are hoping to come up with some mutually agreeable language.”

Costa Mesa’s so-called anti-alien funding policy was passed last August amid debate about growing numbers of illegal aliens entering the city.

City Councilman Orville Amburgey argued that undocumented aliens, including large gatherings of dayworkers who had been congregating on city streets and in parks, were attracted, in part, by free food, medical care and other assistance offered by charitable groups in the city.

The policy was intended to restrict such services to legal residents or cut off city funds to organizations that did not comply. But the plan outraged the county’s charitable and immigrant rights organizations as well as religious leaders, who called the policy insensitive and impractical.