Cold Facts Fuel Heated Talk on Immigration

Isolated from all the emotional rhetoric, Elizabeth Hoag sits in a gray cubicle of the state government bureaucracy and counts the people moving into California--and the people moving out.

You will not hear any so-called immigrant bashing here, or charges of racism. She spews just dry data about drivers licenses, births, census updates, military transfers, school enrollments, foreign entries. . . . A lot of foreign entries.

Hoag has been at her post for 18 years, back to the era of Gov. Ronald Reagan. She is called a demographic research manager and loves the work, moving quietly but quickly through thick binders of computer printouts to chart the growth and changing composition of California’s population.

Politics is verboten in her eighth-floor cranny a block from the state Capitol. But the cold numbers she supplies can be the raw incendiary material for any politician’s inflammatory oratory.

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Some of Hoag’s latest figures are eye-openers:

California’s estimated population hit 31.3 million last July, about double the number living here in 1960. In the 12 months prior to July, the state’s population grew by 654,000, or 2.1%, during a deep recession when California was losing an estimated 800,000 jobs.

A majority of this growth--392,000 people--was “natural.” There were nearly three times as many births as deaths. It is presumed that a significant number of the infants were born to immigrants residing in this country illegally; the exact figure was not available. Babies born in the United States automatically become citizens.

Of the new Californians, 46% were foreign immigrants. They totaled 303,000, a two-decade high and a one-year increase of 22%. About 100,000 of these foreigners entered the country illegally. About 1.3 million illegal immigrants reside in the state, 4% of the population.

Somewhat offsetting the foreign immigration and natural growth was domestic out-migration. More people packed up and left California for other states than moved in, a net loss of 41,000. The losses were especially seen among people in their prime earning years. And the exodus to greener pastures has been increasing since last July, Hoag reports. To see what the changing demographics mean in tax dollars, you leave Hoag and walk to other drab bureaucracies--Health and Welfare, Education, Corrections, Finance. . . .

A 1992 report by the state auditor general estimates that it costs state and local governments a net $3 billion annually to provide services for immigrants living illegally in California. This figure is extrapolated from an analysis of illegal immigrants in San Diego County, where they were found to be consuming $206 million in public services while paying $60 million in state and local taxes, a net cost of $146 million.

In California’s public elementary and high schools, 17% of the students--866,000--are the children of illegal and non-citizen immigrants, according to the Finance Department. Three in 10 of the children are not citizens. In all, this 17% of the student body costs the state and local districts $3.6 billion.

At a time when state government is facing an $8-billion budget shortfall, it also is looking at another $918 million in health and welfare costs for immigrants and $243 million to imprison illegal immigrants convicted of felonies.

Meanwhile, the number of people who pay income tax is not increasing nearly as fast as the number of Californians who use public services. This has created what Gov. Pete Wilson calls a “growing taxpayer squeeze.” And now we are back to politics.

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Wilson has been pressing the Clinton Administration and Congress to kick in nearly $1.5 billion to help defray the immigrant costs. Other big-state governors agree with his contention that the federal government is obligated to pay for certain services because it mandated them and controls immigration policy. But the speculation in Washington is that California has a shot at only half the money, at best.

A recent survey of Los Angeles city residents by The Times Poll indicated that the public generally is unhappy about the immigrant situation. Six in 10 said: “There are too many foreign immigrants in Los Angeles.” This was true of six in 10 Latinos, as well as African-Americans and Anglos. Nearly two-thirds of the blacks and Anglos also said police should be allowed to help immigration officials track down illegal immigrants, but only a third of Latinos thought this.

The public mood and the shortage of tax dollars would seem to demand the attention of elected officials. But this is a sensitive area laden with land mines. And unlike Elizabeth Hoag, politicians cannot ignore the fiery rhetoric.