O.C. Braces for Slashed Refugee Aid : Immigration: Bush’s $12-million cut could force hundreds onto welfare rolls, county officials warn. Local government’s costs may skyrocket.

President Bush’s plan to drastically cut assistance programs for new refugees could cost Orange County $12 million in federal funds and drive hundreds of refugees onto local welfare rolls, officials said Thursday.

About 2,000 refugees in Orange County receive the $12 million through a county-run program, and officials immediately initiated a study to determine how much of the costs local government might have to absorb.

“It potentially could be significant,” said Robert A. Griffith, chief deputy director of the County Social Services Agency. “Orange County can’t set federal immigration policies, yet we are the ones left responsible for caring for these people.”

Local welfare rolls are already at record levels, and county officials are struggling to cope with mounting budget problems that have forced layoffs in county government since 1978.

The proposed federal cuts would scuttle the Refugee Cash Assistance Program, and would transfer financial responsibility for hundreds of refugees from the federal government directly to the county-financed general relief welfare program. Other federal programs for refugees would also be affected, but the burden would fall mostly on the state rather than the county.

Local officials said the proposed cuts are likely to have a disproportionate impact on Orange County, which has one of the largest refugee populations in the nation. The vast majority of immigrants who gain refugee status in the county are Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians who have fled political persecution in Southeast Asia and refugees from formerly Communist Eastern European countries.

“If you have a federal policy of encouraging or allowing refugee immigration then there must be some federal assistance to deal with the resulting problems,” said Supervisor Roger R. Stanton.

Representatives of local refugee groups expressed disappointment and concern that the cuts proposed in Bush’s 1993 budget plan reflect a faltering commitment to their welfare. Under the Refugee Act of 1980, Congress agreed to cover the costs of cash and medical assistance for refugees for the first 36 months of their residency. But that support has steadily eroded, from 36 months to 24 months and now to only the first eight months.

The new proposed cuts would slash $1 billion from health and education programs for refugees and newly legalized immigrants. Federal funding for California’s 320,000 refugees would slide from $410 million to $227 million.

Stanton said the proposed cuts are likely to step up demands that Congress link the amount of refugee assistance to the number of refugees allowed in the country.

“We’re going to have to have a lot more attentive congressmen in Orange County with regard to the problem we’re facing,” said Stanton. “While there are a number who seem deeply interested in foreign policy, they seem uninterested in what the implications are for local government.”

According to state figures, about 33,000 Orange County refugees now receive some form of aid, including Medi-Cal, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Supplemental Security Income or other cash assistance. But these costs are picked up primarily by the state and federal governments.

With 2,000 participants, the county’s Refugee Cash Assistance Program is the state’s largest. The program is aimed at single or older refugees without dependent children and provides them with $250 to $350 a month.

It is just this category of refugees--many of whom have been political detainees--that that is making up more and more of Orange County’s refugee population, according to officials.

They are more likely to be from rural areas, lack job skills and education and be dependent on aid for longer periods, Griffith said.

“The new refugees are older, most in their 50s, and they are mostly former political detainees,” said Tuong Duy Nguyen, director of the Santa Ana-based Vietnamese Community of Orange County.

“Their health is poor, and they, more than anyone else, need monetary assistance,” he added.

One such person is 44-year-old Thep Khac Cao, who came to Orange County four months ago, after years as a political prisoner that left him with a paralyzed left hand.

“No one wants to hire a 44-year-old man who doesn’t speak English and whose hand doesn’t function,” Cao told a reporter in Vietnamese Thursday during a break from an English as a second language class at The Cambodian Family Inc. in Santa Ana. “I am now on welfare, but that’s going to expire in four months. What am I going to do after that?

“Right now I rent a room from a house, but I can see myself being on the street in four months because I won’t have rent money. I just want to find a job, a job to set me free from this welfare burden.”

Many officials and advocates for refugees said the proposed cuts amount to a reneging on promises made to people invited into the country from desperate situations.

“We have invited these refugees to our country and we should give them the tools that they need to become self-sufficient, at least the basic tools which would include learning English and learning how to look for a job,” said Rifka Hirsch, director of The Cambodian Family.

Refugee assistance programs are just “a bridge for these new refugees to come and learn some English and look for a new job,” she said. Cutting back federal funding cash assistance may mean taking that “bridge” away, and “it’s a mistake to do this.”

State officials also emphasized that refugees should not be looked on as simply a financial drain.

“We tend to emphasize the cost but we consider assistance to refugees an investment that will pay off down the road as these immigrants pay back benefits by becoming employed and paying taxes,” said Walter Barnes, chief of refugee and immigration programs for the state Department of Social Services.

“Our real concern is not with the immigrants themselves,” he added, “our concern is that we were promised help from the federal government and we’re not getting it.”