Beilenson and Gallegly Laud Wilson Plan : Immigration: Some critics attack the proposal to deny U. S. citizenship as a political ploy that punishes ‘innocent victims.’

Ventura County’s two congressmen Tuesday applauded Gov. Pete Wilson for joining their efforts to crack down on illegal immigration by denying U. S. citizenship to children born to parents here illegally.

But immigrant rights advocates attacked Wilson’s proposal, which calls for cutting off health and education benefits to illegal immigrants and their children, as a cruel plan to “punish innocent victims” and bolster the governor’s troubled reelection campaign.

“It’s political,” said Armando Garcia, chairman of the Oxnard-based Coalition for Immigrant Rights. “If you look at history, the border is open every time we’re in prosperity. And then it closes when we’re in a recession.”

In an interview, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) praised Wilson for his “bold and courageous” stand on illegal immigration, which they said is eating up more than $2.3 billion in state funds annually. Gallegly noted that Wilson’s proposals are very similar to federal legislation Gallegly has been pushing for several years.

“The thing that is most gratifying is that I am no longer the lone voice in the wilderness,” said Gallegly, whose 23rd Congressional District includes all of Ventura County except for most of Thousand Oaks.

Gallegly said it is especially important for Wilson, who is governor of a state with an estimated 2 million illegal immigrants, to take an aggressive stand on what Gallegly said is a bipartisan issue. California’s two U. S. senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, have also called for tougher controls on immigration.

Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) said he supports a constitutional amendment that would deny U. S. citizenship to children of illegal immigrants, but does not agree with Wilson’s proposal to deny health and education benefits to illegal immigrants.

“I do not believe in not educating or taking care of people who are already here,” he said. “What I want to do is deter people from coming into this country in the first place.”

But Beilenson, whose conservative 24th Congressional District stretches from Thousand Oaks to Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley, did not criticize the governor for his get-tough program.

“Our job is to represent the people and to solve problems as best we can,” Beilenson said. “And the reality is this is a major problem. And it doesn’t help to politicize it.”

At a news conference in Los Angeles on Monday, Wilson declared that California is “under siege” from illegal immigration, which he said is the cause of many of the economic problems facing the state.

“We do not exaggerate when we say that illegal immigration is eroding the quality of life for legal residents,” said Wilson, who is preparing to seek his second four-year term with one of the lowest approval ratings of any modern California governor.

In addition to advocating citizenship reform, the Republican governor proposed that except in cases of emergency, state and federal assistance should go only to those immigrants who could prove that they were in the state legally. Immigrants would have to present a tamper-proof identification card similar to a California driver’s license.

Garcia said Wilson was simply using the immigration issue to help his reelection campaign.

“It’s an easy issue because it’s against people who don’t have a voice in this nation,” said Garcia, whose organization provides legal services for farm workers in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

Despite lawmakers who say otherwise, Garcia said he believes that the vast majority of illegal immigrants in California work and pay taxes.

“They go to work to provide services no one else wants to perform,” he said. “If you go raid a strawberry field tomorrow, how many U. S. citizens will apply for those jobs?”

Carmen Ramirez, executive director of the Channel Counties Legal Services Assn., said she was disappointed in Wilson for “jumping on the bandwagon” to make illegal immigrants scapegoats for California and the nation’s economic troubles.

“The last thing we should do is punish innocent children who are born here,” said Ramirez, whose agency provides legal counsel to low-income families throughout the region. “You’re fiddling with some very sacred rights.”

Ramirez said jobs are the main reason that illegal immigrants come to this country, not social services.

“People are looking for work to contribute something to themselves and their families,” she said. “They’re not coming here to get on welfare.”

Jorge Garcia, dean of the humanities department at Cal State Northridge and a Simi Valley resident, said he was surprised at Wilson’s hard-line stance, “but I guess he sees where the polls are right now. He’s on pretty thin ice.”

He called the governor’s proposals “ludicrous and un-American.” Nevertheless, he said he expects illegal immigration to be among the primary issues in the 1994 gubernatorial election.

“It’s going to be a hot issue,” he said. “We haven’t seen the worst of it yet.”