A Fair Point--Oh So Easily Misunderstood : Why emphasizing the immigration issue can be misread

California’s Gov. Pete Wilson faced a near-impossible task this year in balancing the state budget in a recession, and the outlook for next year, with a projected $3-billion deficit, scarcely is better. So he can be forgiven for venting frustration Monday when he visited Washington to ask for financial aid from the federal government--and to urge Congress to be more forthcoming in helping California pay for the social services required by its ever-larger immigrant population. But the governor is walking a dangerous political tight rope here: Legitimate criticism is one thing; ugly scapegoating is another. Wilson has to be careful to draw a balanced picture.

KNOCKING CONGRESS: Wilson faulted Congress for not providing almost $1 billion of the $4 billion it had promised to spend when a historic immigration reform law was passed in 1986. Among other things, that law legalized the status of about 3 million formerly illegal immigrants and promised to help states like California pay for their education and for other social services. As it often is with immigration funding, Congress was inconsistent. Before long it started lifting money out of the legalization cookie jar to fund other programs. So far, Wilson figures, the feds have shortchanged California $600 million.

He’s right, but Wilson himself was a member of Congress until last year. So right away Democrats such as Rep. Leon E. Panetta of Carmel Valley blasted back: Where was Wilson when the cuts started in 1989? That’s one question the governor needs a good answer for if he’s going to continue to take shots at Congress.

But there are other hazards in raising that issue, and they are far more profound than the political jabs that Republicans and Democrats routinely exchange. If Wilson is not careful in how he expresses his understandable concern over the impact of California’s large immigrant population on the state’s budget, he could easily be misinterpreted as trying to blame immigrants for the budgetary problems.

KNOCKING IMMIGRATION: What Wilson should do is discuss the troubling trend in state demographics: The number of California residents who use tax revenues (students, the elderly, prisoners, welfare recipients, etc.) is growing at a faster rate than the number of working-age Californians who pay taxes. That growth is dramatically evident in the increase in school-age children, resulting both from immigration and an overall surge in births (after delaying in the ‘70s and ‘80s, baby boomers are having kids).

This is clearly a challenge that Wilson and other state leaders must be prepared to meet. He argues the best way to do it is to stimulate renewed economic growth in California, and we agree. But getting there from here will take creativity, political compromise and social peace among Californians. It serves no purpose to try to use language that is susceptible to misinterpretation, that suggests the search not for answers but for scapegoats, political or otherwise. Wilson must make special efforts to make sure his discussion of our changing demography is not seen as a green light to start blaming “other” people, be they immigrants or the poor, for the state’s problems.

On Monday the governor got a hint of how easily such sensitive political discussion can turn ugly. California Democratic Party Chairman Phil Angelides got carried away with his rhetoric and compared Wilson to David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klansman recently defeated in Louisiana’s gubernatorial race. That was uncalled for.

Duke is a charlatan whose criticism of immigration is a thin veil for racism. Wilson’s record on immigration, ever since he was mayor of San Diego, is positive. He must do everything possible to avoid misunderstanding or misinterpretation whenever discussing this state’s demographic future.