Issue Goes Beyond Borders of Reason

Back in 1922, a prominent opponent of what would eventually become Hoover Dam warned leaders in Washington that the project was nothing but a subtle scheme to allow outsiders to overrun California from a well-irrigated base in Mexico.

The speaker, one George H. Maxwell, warned of the “creation in America of an Asiatic agricultural empire, with an Asiatic seaport city connecting it with the world’s markets,” of development “done by Asiatics for the benefit of Asiatics,” of “the menace of Asiatic expansion into America,” of a Southern California “open to unlimited Asiatic immigration,” of “an Asiatic wedge ... driven into the heart of America.” Of planes massed at Mexican airstrips to drop poison gas on Los Angeles, and of a threat to blow up the region’s aqueducts. Of, in summary, “a menace of such far-reaching danger that any expenditure necessary to eliminate it in advance would be justified as a military measure of national safety.”

One can reread Maxwell’s peroration in light of the current discussion of immigration from -- once again -- Mexico, and realize how little we’ve progressed in 84 years. Oh, sure, we’re no longer in a panic about “Asiatic” hordes. Now it’s Mexican hordes. But the barely concealed racism, the evocation of economic and agricultural competition and of the specter of terror and violence -- none of that has departed the debate.

Nor has the exploitation of immigration policy by extremists at every level of government. In December, the House passed a bill by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) to build 700 miles of border fencing and make assistance to illegal immigrants (even humanitarian assistance) a felony. On how to reconcile the nation’s current and future need for labor with restrictive immigration policies, the measure is silent.

When protests against the bill brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets of Los Angeles and other cities for peaceful demonstrations, we heard warnings that Latino protesters were really out to seize Southern California as a Mexican homeland. Immigration hard-liners pored over photos from the rallies, counting Mexican flags versus the Stars and Stripes, hoping to prove that the demonstrators are not now and will never be genuine red-blooded Americans.

This is what happens when confusion and paralysis at the federal level produce a gaping vacuum in federal policy: The vacuum gets filled by demagogues, large and petty alike. And that brings us to the City of Costa Mesa.

In December, Costa Mesa Mayor Allan R. Mansoor, an Orange County deputy sheriff in real life as well as the child of immigrants, proposed requiring city police to check the immigration status of anyone stopped for even minor offenses, and detain those suspected of being in the country illegally. The City Council, on a 3-2 vote, approved a more limited plan for perhaps 30 detectives, gang control officers and jail personnel to receive federal training and certification to check the bona fides only of suspects picked up for serious crimes. An estimated 1,500 people rallied against the plan at City Hall on Saturday.

Mansoor didn’t answer my request to talk about the program. But he has suggested publicly that he was responding to a clamor by Costa Mesa voters for action on illegal immigration. Well, not all voters, perhaps. The measure has split the suburban community, of which more than 30% is Latino; scarcely a council meeting passes without vehement expressions of support and angry denunciations alike coming from the audience. A call for a boycott of local businesses that refused to oppose the measure split residents even further.

What irks some critics is that the board’s narrow majority pulled the plan out of thin air.

“There wasn’t a study session held on it, the community wasn’t dialed into the process,” says Ivan Calderon, a community activist and businessman who founded his chain of five Taco Mesa and Taco Rosa restaurants in Costa Mesa 14 years ago. “I believe the focus of our municipality has to be to keep the city safe, minimize crime, instill trust and get people working together so they feel comfortable coming forward.

“Now people are already afraid of going out.”

Nor is everybody happy for the city to suddenly become an epicenter of the national immigration debate. Mansoor was made an honorary member of the Minuteman Project, a group that runs ad hoc civilian border patrols and whose co-founder, James Gilchrist, lives down the road in Aliso Viejo.

“It’s a difficult situation when your little city has taken a position that draws groups from outside, escalating the problem,” says John Hawley, a critic of the program and the owner of Railmakers Inc., a manufacturer of stainless steel railings for boats that is located in the city’s industrialized and heavily Latino west side.

What’s often lost in the debate is how ineffective the mayor’s program is likely to be. The current plan is for the city to participate in a program that Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona is trying to set up with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE. But the county program hasn’t been accepted by ICE despite a year of talks, and nobody knows when it will be. In current practice, the Sheriff’s Department holds felony suspects thought to be illegal immigrants -- including those arrested in Costa Mesa -- in the county jail, where ICE agents check them out.

Adding a city role won’t make those suspects any more likely to face deportation, the council was told last month by Police Chief John Hensley. He noted that the city sees fewer than 150 cases a year of the serious crimes that would trigger an immigration check under the stripped-down plan, but that would still cost the city more than $200,000 a year.

Hensley gives every appearance of having been placed in a delicate position by the grandstanding of politicians over a national issue that has no place in city hall. At a recent council meeting, Councilwoman Katrina Foley, an opponent of the program, asked, “In your professional opinion, do you think that this ICE training will actually help our officers prevent crime?”

“I plead the 5th,” Hensley replied.

Golden State appears every Monday and Thursday. You can reach Michael Hiltzik at golden.state@latimes.com and view his weblog at latimes.com

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