State Democrats Call Immigrant Aid Top Budget Issue

Drawing a rare hard-line stance, Assembly Speaker Cruz Bustamante vowed Monday that aid for poor legal immigrants will be the one issue above all others on which Democrats will hold firm in budget negotiations with Gov. Pete Wilson.

To emphasize his resolve, Bustamante (D-Fresno) distributed tapes of a Democratic television commercial to be aired this week calling on the Republican governor to yield to demands for a state program to replace federal food stamps and other benefits that will be taken away from more than 100,000 poor legal immigrants.

Speaking in highly personal terms, Bustamante said he could not in good conscience allow his concern for poor immigrants to be swept aside in the negotiations over a state budget and a new welfare program.

“It’s because of maybe who I am and where I come from. It’s about my background and how I got here. It’s about my grandparents,” he told a news conference. “I can’t go back home unless I do something important about this issue.”

But he declined to say how far Democrats were willing to go to force Wilson to yield on the issue or how long they would be willing to hold the budget hostage.

“I believe it is not a philosophical issue with the governor. I believe it’s about dollars,” Bustamante said.

Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) appeared briefly alongside Bustamante and other Assembly leaders to demonstrate “solidarity between the Democratic caucuses in the Senate and the Assembly” in protecting legal immigrants.

Wilson, who has steadfastly rejected the idea of providing state-financed food assistance to legal immigrants, gave no signs of being swayed by the tough talk from the Democrats.

“The state of California is not in a position to assume the responsibilities of the federal government with regard to immigration,” Wilson press secretary Sean Walsh said. “It is not an appropriate role for the state to play.”

Rather than create costly new state programs, he said, the Democrats should join the governor in lobbying the federal government for restoration of food stamp and Supplemental Security Income benefits for legal immigrants.

Bustamante’s decision to assign aid to immigrants top priority on the Democratic want list came after several days of behind-the-scenes discussions with many Latino lawmakers, especially Assembly Majority Leader Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles).

They argued that, as the state’s first Latino speaker, Bustamante could not surrender on an issue that affects so many poor Mexican Americans. By going public with a hard-line position, they said, he could not only reassure Latino voters but also silence some critics who have contended that his nonconfrontational style makes him appear to be a weak leader.

But some Democrats said they were concerned that his decision to go public could be a risky gambit that would prompt Wilson to harden his position and prolong budget negotiations that have already gone three weeks past the June 30 deadline. In anticipation of a lengthy fight over a variety of budget issues, Wilson on Monday postponed a vacation scheduled for the first week in August.

California is hit harder than any other state by provisions in the federal welfare reform law that deny food stamps and Supplemental Security benefits to legal immigrants. Proposed changes to the law are expected to reinstate SSI benefits to disabled legal immigrants, but there is no movement in Congress to restore food stamps despite lobbying efforts by Wilson and other governors. There also does not appear to be any interest in restoring SSI benefits to those elderly immigrants who qualified for them after the passage of the federal law in August 1996.

Bustamante estimated that it would cost the state $123 million to restore benefits that legal immigrants will lose under the federal law, including food stamps, SSI and In-Home Supportive Services, the program that provides assistance to the elderly poor so they can continue to live at home. Because of a quirk in California law, eligibility for the in-home services is tied to SSI, so any immigrant who loses SSI will also lose the in-home services.

State officials estimate that 120,000 immigrants will be cut off food stamps beginning Sept. 1 and an additional 29,000 will lose Supplemental Security benefits sometime in the fall. About one-third of these immigrants reside in Los Angeles County.

Although far more immigrants are affected by the loss of food stamps, the Democratic television commercials emphasize the cuts in SSI benefits.

The ads stress that immigrants who will be losing aid are those who came to the United States legally--and not illegal immigrants often criticized by the governor.

“I’m the grandson of immigrants who worked hard, obeyed the law and paid taxes,” Bustamante says in one commercial. “Gov. Wilson’s budget denies legal immigrants SSI after a lifetime of work. That’s wrong. Legal is legal.”

The governor’s office quickly pointed out that the ad was in error, because those immigrants who have worked for 10 years will still be entitled to SSI benefits.

Bustamante said the ads--one in English and one in Spanish--will initially be aired in the Sacramento area at a cost of $45,000. But Democrats said they ultimately hoped to invest at least $150,000 in the ad campaign and air the spots in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco.

”. . . With half the legal immigrants in the nation,” Villaraigosa said, “this state is going to come forward and do the right thing. . . . The federal government abdicated its responsibility on this issue. [It] went after a population of people that was the most vulnerable, a population that didn’t vote.”