Wilson and Dole Tour Jail, Assail Clinton Veto

Sen. Bob Dole and Gov. Pete Wilson toured the Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles on Sunday and then assailed President Clinton for vetoing a bill that would have given $500 million in federal money to the states for the costs of incarcerating illegal immigrants.

Wilson accused Clinton of “frankly welshing” on what Wilson said was Clinton’s 1994 commitment to pay such costs.

Dole, the Senate majority leader and front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, acknowledged that Clinton may have had other reasons for vetoing the bill in the midst of the ongoing budget battle in Washington.

However, he said, “I think President Clinton has turned his back on California. He comes out here a lot, says a lot of things, but when it comes to the crunch, he’s not there.”

A White House assistant to the president on immigration, Emanuel Rahm, said the Clinton administration has made some grants to states to defray their costs of imprisoning illegal immigrants, the first administration to do so.

Rahm said Clinton vetoed the bill--a general funding measure for the Justice, Commerce and State departments--partly because he didn’t like the refusal of the Republican-controlled Congress to allocate funds to put 100,000 more police officers on the streets.

“On combating and confronting illegal immigration,” Rahm said, “the Clinton administration has accomplished more in three years than Sen. Dole has in 35 years sitting in Washington.”

Sheriff Sherman Block, who hosted Sunday’s hourlong jail visit, said that between 17% and 20% of the about 250,000 inmates who pass through the Los Angeles County jail system each year are illegal immigrants and that it costs between $50 million and $70 million annually to house them.

Dole, who spent the day campaigning in the state, said California might have stood to receive 70% of the $500 million appropriated by Congress last month for the costs of jailing illegal immigrants.

He said he would continue his efforts to appropriate the $500 million. “If we can’t protect our borders, then we must not hesitate to pay some of the costs,” Dole said.

While Republicans are trying to cut the federal budget, he said, there are “priorities” that must take precedence and “squeeze out” the expenditure of funds for other purposes.

Wilson, who endorsed Dole for president after abandoning his own candidacy, has carried on a running fight with the Clinton administration over the issue of defraying California’s prison costs for illegal immigrants.

The governor warned Dec. 27 that if the federal government does not pay the state, he will deposit a shackled inmate on the doorstep of a federal jail soon.

If the prisoner is not accepted, aides said, the inmate would be returned to state prison and Wilson would consider legal action against the federal government.

Wilson, in a letter sent the same day to Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, said that 16,030 illegal immigrants are in California prisons and that the number may actually be 20,000. The annual cost of incarcerating each of the state’s 140,000 prisoners is $21,885.

Joining the jail tour were California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

The five officials viewed an exhibit of guns seized from alleged gang members. Sheriff’s Department gang experts said there are about 1,100 separate gangs in the county, with about 150,000 members. The numbers have leveled off in the last two years, they said, but 40% of all murders in the county are believed to be gang-related.

As they listened to the briefing, the visitors picked up some of the guns, ranging from pistols to automatics, for closer inspection. All were unloaded, Block said.

The visitors then saw the inmate reception area, an automated finger-printing facility and, briefly, some cells. But they saw inmates only from a distance.