Wilson Finds Allies on Illegal Immigrant Funds : Politics: Committees of the National Governors’ Assn. approve resolutions calling on U.S. to pick up the tab for services provided to undocumented residents.

Gov. Pete Wilson enlisted his colleagues Sunday in his crusade to compel the federal government to pick up more of the costs for services provided to illegal immigrants.

Committees of the National Governors’ Assn. approved resolutions calling on the federal government to assume the costs of providing illegal immigrants with emergency medical care and education, as well as the tab for incarcerating those convicted of felonies. The states now bear most or all of those costs.

Wilson and the governors of Florida, Texas, New York and Illinois--all among the states with the largest populations of illegal immigrants--are scheduled to meet today with senior Clinton Administration officials to press their case for more aid.

“Bill Clinton did not create the problem; the President inherited the problem like all the rest of us,” Wilson said. “But we are asking that he exercise the leadership that we think necessary to help move the Congress.”

In an interview Sunday, Wilson all but slammed the door on a potential bid for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination, even if he wins reelection in November.

Asked if he would commit to remain in office through 1998 if reelected, Wilson said: “God willing and the voters willing, I would look forward to serving that term and doing it with more dollars and fewer disasters than I have experienced in the first one.”

Illegal immigration has emerged as a major issue in Wilson’s effort to win that second term. Since August, he has repeatedly accused the federal government of failing to take sufficient steps to control the border. He has also blamed a substantial portion of the state’s fiscal distress on the costs of providing services to illegal immigrants.

White House officials have largely viewed Wilson’s complaints as an effort to shift blame for the state’s problems from Sacramento to Washington. But the issue escalated recently when Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles, a Democrat, also pressed for greater reimbursement.

Now, states pay as much as half the costs of emergency medical care for illegal immigrants through the Medicaid program; Wilson estimates such services cost California at least $400 million annually. Also, the U.S. Supreme Court has required the states to educate the children of illegal immigrants.

The federal government has authorized payments to states to help with the costs of incarcerating illegal immigrants convicted of felonies, but no funds have been appropriated.

These intergovernmental fiscal concerns--as is typically the case at gatherings of state officials--dominated the governors’ meeting Sunday.

Worrying about the impact on their own budgets, the governors took aim at a regional prison proposal included in the crime bill the Senate passed in November. Under the bill, the federal government would build 10 new regional prisons, but only allow states access to them if they reformed their own sentencing rules to require that prisoners serve 85% of their time. In California, prisoners typically serve half their sentence.

Echoing earlier complaints from state legislators and correctional officers, the governors charged that the costs of the so-called “truth-in-sentencing” provision--the heart of the Republican contribution to the Senate bill--would greatly exceed the savings they could expect from moving prisoners into the regional prisons.

“This is a reaction by federal politicians to their need to talk tough on crime,” Oklahoma Gov. David Walters said. “If this happens, it is going to be a boondoggle.”

The Administration has not taken a position on the regional prison proposal, but several key White House advisers have said they prefer providing grants directly to the states rather than constructing the facilities.

On welfare reform, several governors expressed concerns about the potential costs of the Administration’s proposal, which is expected to include a two-year limit on benefits to most welfare recipients, but then provide public employment if they cannot find private sector work.

Walters, joined by Wilson and Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. of North Carolina, supported the two-year limit but said it should not be conditioned on a guarantee of public employment. “We are never going to reform the system if we accept that (guarantee) as a precondition to time-limited benefits,” Walters said.