Audit on Illegal Immigrants Challenged : Government: The study requested by Rep. Elton Gallegly says the county spends $15 million a year on them. Officials admit the figures are guesses.

Immigrant-rights advocates are challenging an audit that concludes that Ventura County spends $15 million a year on illegal immigrants, saying that the report is plagued by guesswork and draws reckless conclusions aimed at whipping up anti-immigrant fervor.

The audit--based on a review of the county’s health, welfare and criminal justice systems--was done at the request of Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), a longtime backer of tougher immigration controls.

County officials agree that the audit, released earlier this month, merely guesses at the costs of illegal immigration. They say they were asked by Gallegly to provide such information, and they did the best they could with the limited time and data available.

The report estimates that the Ventura County Medical Center spends roughly $3.7 million a year to serve undocumented immigrants.

In addition, the welfare department doles out about $7.7 million annually, while criminal justice spends roughly $3.5 million a year to prosecute, jail and supervise illegal immigrants on probation.

Immigrant-rights advocates question the accuracy and fairness of the study.

“This report not only further dehumanizes undocumented immigrants, it demonizes them by making them scapegoats for our economic problems,” said Oscar Gonzalez, an Oxnard attorney and a member of the Ventura County Coalition for Immigrant Rights.

“It doesn’t hold water,” Gonzalez said. “This is yet another step on Mr. Gallegly’s behalf to cast undocumented immigrants in the most negative light possible.”

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Carmen Ramirez, executive director of the Oxnard-based Channel Counties Legal Services, said any analysis of costs must be balanced by an accounting of benefits derived from undocumented workers, such as the taxes they pay and the cheap labor they provide.

Ramirez and others contend that county officials have acted irresponsibly in issuing a one-sided review of such a complex issue.

“This is just an unbelievably superficial analysis,” Ramirez said. “I would like to see some leadership instead of people lighting the torches for the lynch mob.”

In crafting the report, Ventura County joins Los Angeles, Orange and a host of other California counties in trying to determine the costs of illegal immigration.

Immigration analysts agree that states, counties and localities bear a disproportionate share of illegal immigration’s burden. These levels of government pay for most of the public services illegal immigrants receive, while the federal government collects most of the taxes they pay.

Cash-strapped governments, looking to recoup money spent on public services to the undocumented, are tallying their expenses with the hope of squeezing reimbursement from the federal government.

“I think the taxpayers of this county have the right to know where their tax dollars are being spent and if we are spending an inordinate amount of money on people who have no right to be here in the first place,” Gallegly said last week.

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Gallegly believes that the costs of illegal immigration to Ventura County are actually much higher than revealed in the audit.

“I would like to see an ongoing accounting of this,” he said. “I don’t think anyone who is being intellectually honest can argue that illegal immigration is not having a significant effect on California economically.”

But not even county officials, including some of those who helped compile the report, are willing to vouch for its validity.

“It’s not statistically reliable,” said Clinton Tatum, principal administrative analyst for the county. “I don’t think anyone would swear by the numbers. All of the departments were somewhat reluctant to provide the information because it was based on ‘guesstimates.’ ”

Susan Lacey, chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors, said the review was not meant to be an accurate representation of the costs of illegal immigration to the county.

“We certainly are not saying anything about the efficacy of those numbers,” Lacey said. “We were asked by the congressman for this information, and I felt we were compelled to give him anything that was public information that was readily available.”

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The countywide audit was sparked by a patient survey at the Ventura County Medical Center.

Upon admittance during the month of June, patients were asked to reveal their citizenship status. That question is not normally asked, hospital spokeswoman Patricia Rumpza said, but patients were told that the information would not affect their health-care service.

The survey found that 27% of the patients were illegal immigrants. Of those, 83% were pregnant and nearly all had Medi-Cal, which means the county’s costs probably will be reimbursed by state tax dollars.

About 42% of the women who gave birth at the hospital in June were illegal immigrants, the survey said. On the basis of the one-month survey, county officials estimated an annual cost of $3.7 million to provide services to the undocumented.

After learning about the hospital survey, Gallegly asked county officials to figure out the costs of illegal immigration to other departments. Few departments collect such information, but some officials managed to draw conclusions including:

* County officials put the annual cost at $6.4 million to provide welfare and food stamps to children who are legal residents but whose parents are undocumented immigrants. The estimate is based on a one-month review of such cases.

Although included as a cost of illegal immigration, those benefits are paid to children who are U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents.

* Officials estimated that they spend $2.9 million a year jailing undocumented immigrants. Figuring the average length of stay for inmates was 126 days and the average daily cost per inmate was about $51, officials were able to determine the approximate cost of jailing 462 inmates during fiscal year 1992-93.

But that estimate collides with the results of an in-depth study that put incarceration costs of illegal immigrants in Orange County’s jails at $1.5 million to $2.2 million a year. Orange County has a population more than three times larger than that of Ventura County, and its county jails house an average of 4,400 inmates a day, compared to 1,200 to 1,400 in Ventura.

Furthermore, Ventura County officials are quick to note that even if all the illegal immigrants were removed from jail, that would not necessarily translate to a savings of $2.9 million a year.

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“The higher the numbers go, the cheaper it gets” to lock up jail inmates, said Donald Lanquist, chief deputy over detention services. “A lot of people use the term ‘study’ with this thing when what it really is is a snapshot.”

* The probation department estimated an annual cost of $211,000 for supervising undocumented immigrants once they are released from jail.

Gallegly was particularly upset by this cost.

“Why are these people not immediately deported instead of going into a county-funded counseling program?” he wanted to know.

Probation officials say they end up supervising illegal immigrants because U.S. Border Patrol agents sometimes fail to pick them up when they are released from jail. Border Patrol officials could not be reached for comment.

* Estimating that nearly 20% of court cases involve illegal immigrants, the district attorney’s office said it spends nearly $400,000 a year prosecuting the undocumented.

“All we could do was take some real stabs at the number,” said Karen Kiplinger, manager of fiscal services for the district attorney’s office. “We don’t keep statistics on illegal aliens.”

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It is precisely that kind of guesswork that most angers immigrant-rights advocates. At a time when anti-immigrant sentiment is rising in tandem with joblessness, advocates say such a superficial review only serves to cloud the immigration debate.

“It is not insignificant that this study was requested by a politician who is now trying to prove a point by numbers that he has already made through his immigrant-bashing rhetoric,” said Eileen McCarthy, a lawyer with California Rural Legal Assistance in Oxnard.

“This sort of effort is not a sound basis for crafting a public fiscal policy,” she added. “Reports of this type make for good politics, not for good policy.”

Gallegly counters that those who are put off by the skimpy information contained in the county audit should share his interest in having a long-term review of the issue.

“Why would they not advocate having an ongoing check of this every month?” he said. “I just want to know how much money is being spent by the County of Ventura on those who have come into this country and this state illegally.”

Costs of Illegal Immigration

Ventura County estimates it spends nearly $15 million a year providing health, welfare and criminal justice services to illegal immigrants.

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Aid to Families with Dependent Children and Food Stamps: $6.4 million Ventura County Medical Center: $3.7 million County Jail: $2.9 million Food stamps only: $1.1 million District Attorney: $391,454 Probation: $210,960 Foster care: $173,000 *

Source: Ventura County