Don’t Prejudge Immigrant Study, Stanton Tells Critics : Statistics: Supervisor says the county report on the cost of providing public services to illegal and legal aliens would be helpful to local governments.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Roger R. Stanton Friday urged immigrant rights advocates not to prejudge a county study aimed at measuring the cost of providing health and social services to illegal and legal immigrants.

Stanton’s comments come in wake of recent criticisms of the planned study, which was requested by the city of Orange Chamber of Commerce and the Orange County Grand Jury.

“I’m really worried about a lot of rhetoric on this issue,” Stanton said. “Our job will be to steer a course through a political minefield where there is potential for explosions on the right and left.”

In a memo distributed to supervisors Friday, County Administrative Officer Ernie Schneider said he would be meeting with officials from the county’s health, social services, education and criminal justice institutions to determine how the information would be collected.

“Based on an initial assessment of relevant agencies and departments, much of the requested data is not readily available or not available at all,” Schneider said in the memo.

Because of the apparent lack of information, Schneider’s memo indicated that the county study may not be able to answer all of the concerns expressed in both the chamber and grand jury requests.

The chamber had asked the county to study the public expense of providing a range of services, including “yearly births in county facilities by illegal alien mothers,” welfare payments to legal immigrants, and health care and legal costs for illegal and legal immigrants.

It also wanted the county to identify “communicable disease cases documented for illegal aliens and legal immigrants.”

The grand jury asked for statistics on the cost of educational and social services for illegal immigrants, sources said.

Responding to the dual requests, Schneider’s memo stated that county officials would review a similar but controversial study of conditions in San Diego County. The San Diego report completed in August found that illegal immigrants had taken up a huge portion of public resources.

Findings in that report drew particularly vocal criticism from immigrant rights groups there, and some in Orange County now believe a similar study would target illegal immigrants as a drain on public services and be used to deny them access to future services.

Leo Chavez, an anthropology professor at UC Irvine who is familiar with the San Diego study, said Thursday that such reports send a message to immigrants “that they should move on.”

“What you’re doing is putting a little star on people’s heads and telling them that they are different,” Chavez said Thursday when informed of the Orange County study.

Regardless of the furor, Stanton said he is supporting the study and hoped it could be helpful in showing the federal government the burdens placed on local governments by the influx of undocumented immigrants.

“It’s a bloody mess to try to sort out,” Stanton said, “but I don’t think we should be operating in a state of ignorance. I think there are those in the ethnic community who want the same information. I don’t think this should be divided along ethnic lines.”

By initiating the study, Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez said, the county was dutifully responding to “requests from the outside.”

“I think it’s important for people to reserve judgment on this,” Vasquez said.

Stanton said the county’s report could be complete within 60 days and would probably cost about $5,000.