Cut Off Aid to Immigrants, Group Urges

California should cut off jobs, social services, driving privileges, college educations and tax refunds to illegal immigrants, a former Reagan Administration official said Wednesday.

“Illegal aliens cost California taxpayers millions of dollars,” said Alan Nelson, a federal Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner from 1982 to 1989.

“They seriously hurt all areas of California society--employment, welfare, health, crime, housing and our basic values,” Nelson said.

Nelson and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) held a Capitol news conference one day after the Wilson Administration released a report about the strain placed on state finances by growing numbers of poor people and immigrants.

That report echoed a theme that Republican Gov. Pete Wilson has been sounding in recent speeches.

Helen Graham, FAIR’s California program director, praised Wilson for addressing immigration at a time when few other officials or growth-management advocates are willing to do so publicly.

FAIR is a nonprofit group seeking to reduce immigration and to step up border controls. Among other things, it advocates building walls and other barriers along sections of the U.S.-Mexico line.

Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) criticized the governor and FAIR for “anti-immigrant sentiment,” saying they were unfairly blaming immigrants for all of the state’s problems.

“Our legal immigrants, 1.6 million strong, represent one of the most productive segments of California’s economy and, by all measures, put in much more than they take out,” Torres said in a written statement.