A State Border Patrol Wouldn’t Be Out of Bounds

A legislator wants California to create its own border police force to keep out illegal immigrants. Two things are intriguing about that.

First, it’s one of those paradoxes of politics that this significant expansion of state government is being advocated by a conservative Republican. Such ideologues, after all, usually push to pare back the bureaucracy.

Second, given the federal government’s dereliction of duty along the U.S.-Mexican border, this seems to be the only sensible alternative for Californians frustrated with rampant illegal immigration. And many are.

“It’s the first question that comes up,” says the legislator, Assemblyman Ray Haynes of Murrieta, referring to citizen meetings he holds in his district that covers western Riverside and northern San Diego counties. “Folks literally have illegals running through their backyards.” (He’s talking big backyards, as in ranches.)

“About two years ago, things started heating up. It’s now the hottest issue. The [state] budget, people can’t understand. They understand illegal immigration. They see it.”

Mark Baldassare, pollster for the Public Policy Institute of California, agrees that Republican voters -- the people Haynes talks to -- have become increasingly upset about illegal immigration. “It is one of their top issues,” he says, “even though for Californians as a whole, it ranks in the second tier, behind the economy and schools.”

But also in that second tier of issues is budget deficits. And many Californians believe these problems are all related.

Precise figures don’t exist, but it’s broadly estimated that California spends between $5 billion and $9 billion annually to educate, medically care for and imprison illegal immigrants.

There are roughly 2.6 million illegal immigrants living in California, according to a recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C.

Although many get dinged for federal Social Security taxes, it’s not logical they’re paying much in state and local taxes. They may get tapped through rents for some property taxes. But with low wages, it’s doubtful they owe state income tax. And their meager discretionary income means they can’t be buying a lot, so the sales tax they pay is minimal.

Moreover, based on Pew research, illegal immigrants in California are sending at least $4.3 billion back to their native countries -- primarily Mexico -- rather than spending it here.

Liberals who close their eyes to illegal immigration point out that it benefits consumers by keeping down prices for vegetables and fruits and -- they’d like us to believe -- restaurant meals and hotel rooms. But it also depresses wages and benefits, and leads to exploitation of workers.

Evidence of that was found by the Pew center: Latinos -- mostly new immigrants -- accounted for 1 million of the 2.5 million American jobs created in 2004. But Latinos are the only major group of workers to have suffered a two-year decline in wages and now earn 5% less than two years ago.

This suggests, the center continued, “that they are competing with each other in the labor market to their own detriment.”

Numbers can be spun and disputed. But it’s indisputable that the law is being broken. The issue is not immigration. It’s illegal immigration.

“This is an issue, especially for Republicans, of what’s fair and what’s right and what’s legal,” Baldassare says. “That’s what places it at the forefront.”

“The feds should just do their job,” says Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, insisting that if America can afford to fight a war in Iraq, it can afford to guard its border.

But that’s the wrong argument. The Bush administration really can’t afford the war in Iraq. It’s running a record $427-billion budget deficit this year. The total cost for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, so far, is pegged at around $300 billion.

Schwarzenegger has praised the volunteer Minutemen for doing a “terrific job” patrolling the border in Arizona. But citizen posses worry Haynes. “There is a risk with untrained volunteers of something going wrong,” the lawmaker says.

A state border patrol was suggested by a voter at a meeting in Temecula. “Why doesn’t California just do it?” he asked Haynes.

The assemblyman, surfing websites, found a 1996 federal act that allows states and counties to negotiate pacts with Washington, D.C., to help enforce immigration laws. No state has done it.

Haynes envisions a force of 1,500 to 3,000 officers, costing $200 million to $300 million a year. There now are about 1,700 federal officers on the California border, says Rep. Edward R. Royce (R-Fullerton), chairman of a House terrorism subcommittee who strongly supports Haynes’ idea.

Where does our deficit-ridden state get money for this? “We need to bite the bullet and pay whatever we have to pay,” Haynes says. “We don’t need a tax increase. Revenue growth will more than pay....

“We conservatives believe government has one legitimate function -- public safety. Protecting the border is public safety.”

The border police force also would enforce ignored laws that ostensibly forbid the hiring of illegal immigrants. For farm labor, Haynes supports a temporary guest worker program.

“People coming into this country now are exploited at every level,” he says. “They’re exploited by traffickers, they’re exploited by a large chunk of employers, they’re victims of crime they can’t report because they’re afraid of being caught.”

Haynes is under no illusion that the Legislature will pass his measure. So he’s aiming for a ballot initiative in June 2006.

“This is going to fly,” predicts his campaign consultant, Dave Gilliard, “because it’s not punitive. It’s enforcing existing law.”

It would not be the first time California has gotten out ahead of the rest of the country. And if nothing else, it might prod the feds into doing their job.