Kemp Returns Salvo of Costa Mesa Adversary : Civic policy: Councilman Orville Amburgey accuses the HUD secretary of making ‘asinine statements’ and says he is afraid to debate the city’s attempts to regulate illegal aliens.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp on Friday accused Costa Mesa Councilman Orville Amburgey of trying to turn the HUD ruling against the city’s former funding policy regarding aliens into a personal dispute and vowed to defend his actions in the Supreme Court if challenged.

Responding to Amburgey’s invitation Thursday to debate the issue, Kemp said that as a Cabinet member enforcing Bush Administration policy, he is under no obligation to engage in a personal debate with the councilman.

“There is going to be no debate,” Kemp said from Laguna Beach, where he is visiting relatives. “I am not going to let (HUD grant money) be used in any way that discriminates on the basis of (legal status), color or race.”

Amburgey, in turn, accused Kemp on Friday of making “asinine statements” and said the secretary is afraid to debate him.

“I think it’s very clear that he has something he doesn’t want to discuss. . . . I think he can’t defend his position,” Amburgey said.

The councilman said he would continue with plans to seek from Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh an opinion on Kemp’s authority.

Kemp and Amburgey have engaged in increasingly heated exchanges about the city’s attempts to regulate the flow of illegal immigrants into the community, the most controversial of which is a now-defunct policy of restricting grant money to charities that refuse to screen their clients to ascertain whether they are documented.

In the interview Friday, Kemp called the policy, which was sponsored by Amburgey, “discriminatory” and suggested that the outspoken councilman lodge his complaints about illegal immigrants with the Immigration and Naturalization Service rather than charities that serve aliens.

Costa Mesa’s former policy “is saying that we will set up social service agencies as a branch of the INS, in effect,” Kemp said. “His argument should be with the INS at the border--not with a Catholic charity or a women’s shelter.”

Kemp said that, taken to its extreme, the policy would cause “many unjust violations of civil and human rights of Mexican and Asian Americans.”

He also posed the rhetorical question of whether fire officials could refuse to put out fires in Latino neighborhoods.

But Amburgey blasted Kemp’s example as “asinine.”

“He puts up hypothetical situations that are ridiculous,” Amburgey said. “It is a smoke screen to keep from addressing the real issue.”