California Can’t Keep Paying This Tab : Proposed federal budget ignores pleas for immigrant aid

From a national perspective, President Clinton’s $1.5-trillion budget is a step in the right direction, emphasizing deficit reduction rather than dramatic new spending programs (though the uncertain factor of health care reform could alter Clinton’s austere calculations). However, from a California perspective a very big element is missing--more federal aid to reimburse the state for the money it spends on federally mandated services for illegal immigrants. The absence of additional funding is a major disappointment to California and other states with large immigrant populations like Florida and Texas.

Gov. Pete Wilson was counting heavily on an infusion of $2.3 billion in federal aid to help balance the state’s books next year. In fairness to Clinton, Wilson’s immigrant-aid request probably was too large. It included $1.7 billion for education programs, $300 million for Medi-Cal reimbursements and $300 million to pay for the incarceration of illegal immigrants in state prisons. With the exception of the illegal-immigrant population in prison, which can be counted easily, Wilson’s request was based on population estimates that he should have known would be challenged by federal officials. So it simply was not responsible budgeting for the governor to have relied so greatly on so much federal aid.

It did not help matters that Wilson’s aid request was couched in the stridently anti-immigrant rhetoric he has fallen into the unfortunate habit of using. It was all too easy for Washington to dismiss the request as political posturing by a governor using the immigration issue in a reelection campaign.

UNBALANCED BURDEN: However, in fairness to California, the Clinton Administration should have looked beyond the angry rhetoric of Wilson’s request to simple justice. For although the number of illegal immigrants and their positive or negative impact on U.S. society are open to debate, there is no disagreement over the fact that they are concentrated in California. And while their labor no doubt contributes to the state’s economy, most of the taxes they pay go to Washington. Meanwhile, they use facilities like schools and county hospitals that must be paid for out of local tax coffers.

The imbalance is obvious and has only grown worse in recent years, when severe cuts in defense spending (also mandated in Washington, it is worth remembering) helped send California’s economy into the worst downturn since the Great Depression. It is this imbalance, as much as anything, that has fed the frustration over the immigration issue that many Californians feel--frustration that in turn has spawned ugly anti-immigrant sentiment.

UNFAIR CHOICE: The Clinton Administration has requested special help for California elsewhere, including $8.6 billion in aid to rebuild from the Northridge earthquake. And the proposed budget asks for $4.8 billion in defense conversion, a large part of which will be spent in California, in addition to $2.2 billion in Medicaid funds for indigent patients and $700 million in education programs for poor students, both of which can be spent on immigrants, legal and illegal. But that in effect is asking Sacramento to choose between poor citizens and poor immigrants; that is an unfair choice to ask California, or any other state, to make, especially in light of the fact that the immigration problems are not of Sacramento’s doing but rather result from the federal failure to adequately enforce immigration laws.

It is up to California’s large congressional delegation to carry on Wilson’s fight to get more federal funding for the educational, medical and prison costs associated with illegal immigrants. We disagree with how the governor has waged the campaign to have California treated more fairly, but his cause clearly is a good one.