Wilson to Sue U.S. on Inmate Immigrants : Government: The action will also seek to require INS to take custody of released convicts. The suit is the first in a planned series of legal actions on immigrant issues.

Saying California no longer can afford to wait for Congress to act, Gov. Pete Wilson announced Monday that he will file suit to force the federal government to take responsibility for illegal immigrants in the state’s prisons.

Wilson said the lawsuit will be the first of a series of legal actions focused on the cost to California taxpayers of providing services to illegal immigrants, including education and emergency health care.

The first lawsuit, Wilson said, will demand $377 million as reimbursement for the cost this year of imprisoning 16,700 illegal immigrants who have been convicted of felonies in California.

The suit also will seek to require the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to take custody of these convicts when they are released at the end of their sentences and, in the case of Mexican citizens, to deport them deep into their country rather than at the border, which is now commonly the case.

Wilson, in a speech to a Los Angeles business group, said he hopes that forcing the federal government to pay for the services will prompt Washington to more aggressively guard the border.

“If the federal government were held accountable, they would quickly discover that the cost of ignoring the real and explosively growing problem of illegal immigration is far greater than the cost of fixing it,” Wilson said.

The Republican chief executive gave few details of the lawsuit, which is expected to be filed Friday in San Diego.

Administration aides said the suit will argue that the federal government’s immigration policy violates the Constitution’s 10th Amendment--which defines state authority--because it amounts to a de facto infringement of California’s sovereignty. The state, Wilson says, no longer can spend its tax dollars as it wishes because it must spend nearly 10% of its budget serving people the federal government should be keeping out of the country.

The suit also will contend that the federal government’s shifting of immigration costs to the states violates the constitutional provision establishing a republican form of government.

“If you have a situation where one level of government sets policy but the cost is imposed on the taxpayers of another level of government, there’s no accountability on the people who created the problem in the first place,” said Leslie Goodman, the governor’s communications director.

The California lawsuit comes as states across the country are pressuring the federal government to do more to enforce the nation’s immigration laws and to help those states most burdened by the costs of serving illegal immigrants.

New York has been trying since 1990 to get the federal government to pay for the cost of keeping illegal immigrants in state prison. Florida filed suit earlier this month to recover $1.5 billion for a range of services it has provided over the past decade.

The Clinton Administration last year responded by fully funding a program to reimburse the states for some of the costs associated with illegal immigration and now is proposing $350 million to help states pay for prison beds for illegal immigrants convicted of felonies. The federal crime bill that the House of Representatives passed last week would require the federal government to pick up the entire tab for imprisoning illegal immigrants, beginning in 1998.

President Clinton also has proposed beefing up the Border Patrol and is working with the states to refine the process through which non-citizens are deported after serving time in state prisons, said Tom Epstein, a White House political aide.

“We have operated very much in good faith,” Epstein said. “We have done a great deal to address the problems of illegal immigration since this Administration took office.”

Epstein said Wilson’s energy would be better spent lobbying Congress. “Gov. Wilson is well aware that getting additional money for these purposes is not going to be easy,” Epstein said.

But Wilson said Congress has made promises in the past only to break them. And he noted that INS Commissioner Doris Meissner recently said it may take a year or longer to develop a new immigration policy.

“Next year is too late,” Wilson said. “California simply cannot afford to wait.”

Wilson was met by demonstrators who accused him of racism. But Wilson, in his speech, said he harbors no ill will toward those who seek to enter this country by any means.

“No one is condemning the illegal immigrants,” he said. “It is those in Washington that we should condemn.”