Grand Jury Calls for Immigration Moratorium : Government: Jurors see migrants as drain on resources. Rights advocates question motives, call report a ‘hatchet job.’

In an extraordinary expression of frustration over the nation’s border policy, the Orange County Grand Jury on Wednesday called for a nationwide, three-year moratorium on all immigration to the United States in an attempt to ease the drain on government programs.

The startling recommendation was contained in a 13-page report calling for a sweeping study aimed at determining the cost to local government of providing services for illegal immigrants.

“If somebody didn’t say this, it probably never would get said,” said Tom Dalton, co-chairman of the grand jury’s Human Services Committee, which authored the report. “We know that a recommendation like this might never get enforced, but having not said this would have been a disservice as a grand juror. The problem is that bad.”

Dalton said jurors were told by County Administrative Officer Ernie Schneider that Orange County spends more than $200 million annually on social services, health care, law enforcement and legal services for illegal immigrants. The figure is apparently the first-ever estimate of those costs. Schneider was not available for comment Wednesday.

“We’re in no way trying to bash any group of people,” Dalton said. “What we are trying to do is make the public aware that this money is being spent. What (the public) wants to do after that is up to them.”

The grand jury has no authority to enforce its recommendations. The group fulfills a watchdog function over county government operations.

Nevertheless, the report states that the massive influx of legal and illegal immigrants--estimated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service at nearly 4 million each year--has overwhelmed Orange County’s public health care resources, jails, public education and welfare services.

In the area of public health, specifically, the report offered probably its most daunting assessment.

“Sanitation cannot be controlled and disease flourishes,” the grand jurors wrote. “Hepatitis, tuberculosis and AIDS are on the rise at a rapid rate within the county. This county could be looking at an accelerated death rate. . . . Diseases do not recognize borders.”

The influx of illegal immigrants was also blamed for the county’s “failure to win the war on drugs.”

The report’s conclusions and recommendations brought criticism from immigrant rights advocates, however, some of them calling into question the jury’s motives.

“This is a wild report,” said John Palacio, Orange County leadership program director for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “This is clearly a political hatchet job that’s designed to promote anti-immigrant hysteria, and that’s really unfortunate.”

Palacio said the study was one-sided and its data skewed. Dalton acknowledged that the report did not consider the benefits and contributions of immigrants.

“Nobody really has a problem with the immigrants in good times,” Palacio noted. “It’s when you have bad times that the immigrants get blamed for everything.”

Mai Cong, president of the Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc., took particular exception to the call for a moratorium on immigration.

“This country was developed by immigrants,” Cong said. “This country, which is recognized as a superpower, is built by immigrants.”

INS spokesman Ron Rogers said the grand jury’s report represents a growing frustration at the nation’s apparent inability to control its borders during a time of severe economic hardship in California and other areas of the country.

“This is not a racial issue,” Rogers said. “This is a population issue. What we’re seeing here is an example that immigration issues are at the forefront of public consciousness.

“People are seeing the true costs of legal and illegal immigration, and they are starting to voice their concerns. And they are demanding action.”

According to the INS, the number of immigrants who entered the United States legally during 1991 was about 1.8 million. During the same time, illegal entries were estimated at more than 2 million.

In publishing the report, Dalton said, the jury was also expressing its dissatisfaction with an earlier study by the county government that attempted to estimate the cost of immigration but concluded that it could not be done.

That study was originally requested by the grand jury and the city of Orange Chamber of Commerce. The county report was published in February.

At the time the county study was being prepared, officials acknowledged that there was great “sensitivity” to the potential for criticism by immigrant rights advocates, who had blasted a similar San Diego County study. That study found that illegal immigrants took a huge toll on public resources, estimating the cost at more than $146 million.