Wilson to Seek Funds for Immigrant Services

Gov. Pete Wilson will go to Washington next week to lobby the Bush Administration and Congress for federal dollars to pay for services to California’s burgeoning immigrant population--an obligation that he says is unfairly costing the state more than $200 million a year.

The governor is scheduled to meet on Monday with White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu, Budget Director Richard A. Darman and congressional leaders, according to Wilson’s press secretary, Bill Livingstone.

“Congress has passed legislation without concern for the ability of the states to pay,” Livingstone said. “As a consequence, it is bankrupting the states as well as driving the budget deficits up.

“If they (the federal government) require us to provide services, they should make full funding available.”

Under federal law, funds are made available to states to offset costs of providing health care and adult education programs--primarily instruction in English--to recently arrived immigrants. Some of the costs are also borne by the states. Wilson maintains that this year Congress has failed to provide sufficient funds for the services that California provides. As a result, he argues, California will be spending more than $200 million a year from the state treasury for a federal obligation.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) said he agreed with Wilson. The trip to Washington is an excellent idea, Brown said. “California and Florida have a disproportionate number of immigrants. They also bear a disproportionate burden of the cost that should be borne by all U.S. citizens.”

“The federal government should appropriate more money and assign that money to where the problems are. He (Wilson) has got to go get the money. We need it. And we are entitled to it,” Brown said.

A spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) said the Washington lobbying effort was discussed during a recent meeting between the governor and state legislative leaders.

Roberti fully endorses the idea of the trip, said Bob Forsyth, his press secretary.

“The states are being forced to pick up part of the bill,” Livingstone said, “but they (Congress) set the policies. We don’t have any control. We feel they should pay for the cost of their policies.”

Wilson also will seek reimbursement from the federal government for increasing Medi-Cal costs, according to the governor’s press aide.

Wilson is pressing his case in Washington at a time of a severe budget squeeze. Finance experts are predicting that California may wind up at least $3 billion short of what is needed this fiscal year, and possibly another $3-billion deficit or more in the coming fiscal year.

This grim forecast is based on a sharp drop in state tax collections, the effect of the continuing recession, and increased spending for health and welfare programs for the poor.

Accompanying the governor on the Washington trip will be state Finance Director Thomas Hayes and state Health and Welfare Secretary Russell Gould.

One of the governor’s critics, Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the Joint Legislative Committee on Refugee Resettlement, said he wished the governor luck in his mission to Washington but continued to be “disappointed” in what he called Wilson’s “anti-immigrant sentiment” of blaming them for the state’s fiscal problems.

He said the governor recently vetoed one of his 1991 bills to appropriate more funds for English classes for legal aliens to help them obtain better jobs and become more productive members of society.

“This measure would have placed our legal immigrants on the path to further self-sufficiency,” the Southern California senator said. “It is ironic that after vetoing a bill to help immigrants pull themselves up by the bootstraps, the governor now blames immigrants for the state’s problems. He just can’t have it both ways.”

In his veto message on Torres’ bill, Wilson said the state couldn’t afford to appropriate the necessary funds without the guarantee of timely federal reimbursement.