CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / 45TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT : Buffa Attacks Rohrabacher on Migrant Issue

Rekindling their simmering fight for a seat in Congress, Costa Mesa Councilman Peter F. Buffa lashed out Wednesday against Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, saying his opponent has talked tough on illegal immigration while sporting a record that “is less than zero.”

Buffa, locked in a testy Republican primary battle in the 45th Congressional District, said Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) has done nothing to curb the flow of illegal aliens during four years at the Capitol.

“Rohrabacher’s brand-new image as the tough-as-nails, illegal-immigration fighter just doesn’t wash,” Buffa declared during a press conference at his campaign headquarters in Costa Mesa.

The congressman launched an immediate counterattack from Washington, saying in a telephone interview that the challenger “is acting more like a buffoon than a Buffa.”

“Either he is ignorant of the facts or he is so desperate in the final days of the campaign that he’s willing to turn the truth on its head,” Rohrabacher said. “The public is fully accustomed to this kind of nonsense coming out of a losing campaign.”

Buffa’s press conference marks his first broadside in weeks against Rohrabacher. The campaign initially was rocked by repeated tussling between the two candidates, who are also battling Huntington Beach Councilman Peter M. Green for the Republican nomination in the June 2 primary.

But the race in the 45th District, which includes Huntington Beach, Seal Beach and parts of Stanton, Westminster, Fountain Valley and Costa Mesa, had grown noticeably more cordial--until Wednesday.

Reading from a prepared statement, Buffa blasted Rohrabacher for dispatching a telegram to President Bush earlier this month demanding that illegal immigrants arrested in the Los Angeles riots be deported. But the request came after police had already begun turning over those looters to U.S. immigration officials.

“It was a well-planned, cynical publicity stunt,” Buffa said. “Who else but Dana Rohrabacher would sit back and watch one of Southern California’s most traumatic moments and see it as just one more press opportunity?”

While boosting his own proposals to tighten border enforcement and introduce a “systematic” approach to allowing guest workers into the country, Buffa claimed that Rohrabacher has only weighed in on two immigration issues during his tenure.

In February, Rohrabacher voted to allow a group of Haitian refugees to temporarily remain at the U.S. Marine base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rather than return them to their strife-torn homeland.

Buffa said he “would have without blinking voted to send them back.” Rohrabacher, however, said he saw his vote as a “humanitarian” act to avoid shipping the Haitians back to a situation where they might be killed.

Rohrabacher also was the only Orange County congressman to back the 1990 Immigration Act, which raised quotas for legal immigration, added Border Patrol agents and removed a policy that excluded immigrants with AIDS.

Buffa said the act failed to truly address the issue, adding that Rohrabacher and Congress “just wink at the problem.”

“Our southern border remains open because Washington chooses for it to remain open,” Buffa said. “The blame falls squarely in the lap of Congress. And based on his hopelessly liberal voting record on immigration, Rohrabacher is clearly part of the problem.”

Rohrabacher argued that the act was a positive step to reduce the flow of illegal aliens by “systematizing” the immigration process, “which is something that Peter Buffa has been advocating himself.”

Buffa also criticized Rohrabacher for making “a deliberately insulting remark” during a speech last month, when the two-term congressman declared that “Pedro” shouldn’t expect to come to the United States and get a $50,000 heart bypass operation free.

“To those who know Rohrabacher well, his new-found zeal as an illegal immigration fighter is classic Dana--a loopy, ‘Wayne’s World’ view of government,” Buffa said. “Take a position that virtually everyone agrees with, make an outrageous statement, then jump up and down like a bad imitation of ‘Rocky’ and scream ‘look at me--I’m courageous!’ Of course, who isn’t opposed to illegal immigration--or spending tax dollars on illegal immigrants?”

Rohrabacher countered that he is co-sponsoring a bill that would put 2,000 more Border Patrol officers in place, all of them drawn from the nation’s winnowed military ranks. He also is introducing a bill that would rescind the current U.S. policy of not allowing state and local service agencies to share information on applicants with the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

“No way are we going to get control of our borders until we eliminate the benefits package that provides an incentive for people to come here in the first place,” Rohrabacher said. “They’re going to struggle or crawl or fly or do anything they can to get into this country and get their hands on the goodies.”

The congressman also charged that Buffa has failed to address the issue in his own city of Costa Mesa.

When the city recently tried to prohibit charities’ receiving federal funds from serving illegal immigrants, U.S. Housing and Urban Development officials balked at the plan, prompting Buffa and a divided Costa Mesa City Council to back down.

“He’s got a lot of bravado when it comes to making statements, but he obviously backs down when the heat is on,” Rohrabacher said.

Buffa, however, said he backed down only because a further fight would have meant losing $800,000 in funds to various social service agencies in the city.