Encinitas Bills U.S. for Costs Tied to Immigrant Problems

This city has sent a bill for $281,695.25 to the U.S. General Accounting Office in Washington for expenses it has incurred solving migrant laborer problems that local officials blame on the federal government.

A letter to Charles A. Bowsher in the GAO’s Office of the Comptroller General from Encinitas Mayor Pamela Slater said attempts to deal with thousands of legal and illegal farm laborers who live within the city’s boundaries have pushed the city to the breaking point.

“If resolve cannot be found,” the letter concludes, “the problems of illegal encampments, open fires, increase in crime, exploitation of workers and increased community tensions will only escalate to insurmountable levels.”

The letter is part of a strategy to force state and federal officials to take responsibility for immigration policies that have led to an influx of legal and illegal immigrants in such cities as Encinitas.

In April, the northern San Diego County community became the first city in California to declare a state of emergency concerning migrant laborers. Since then, however, few solutions have come from either Washington or Sacramento.

So last week, officials decided to send the federal government a bill to make its point.

Officials say expenses include a hiring hall for legal workers to keep job-seekers off sidewalks and private property, a raid to clean out an encampment of migrant workers and security to keep them off the property.

Cleve Corlett, director for public affairs for the General Accounting Office, said he could not say whether the GAO could respond to Encinitas’ request until the agency had received the letter.

Encinitas’ aim, city officials say, is to receive some of the more than $1 billion in State Legalization Impact Assistance Grants already earmarked through the 1987 Immigration Reform and Control Act to help cities defray such costs--funds they say are bogged down in red tape.