Encinitas May Declare Crisis on Migrants

Throwing up its hands to what it calls a rising tide of undocumented aliens, Encinitas City Council voted late Tuesday to explore declaring a local state of emergency within the next 10 days.

The council asked Fire Chief Robert LaMarsh to research the declaration, which in effect admits that efforts by local government have failed to solve problems created by undocumented workers sleeping in canyons and soliciting work on city streets, officials said Wednesday.

The directive was part of a new migrant strategy that includes a possible curbside hiring ordinance and a directive to ask Congress to conduct hearings in North County regarding the growing presence of undocumented aliens from Mexico and Central America.

LaMarsh, who co-authored the key migrant report presented to the council, will report back within 10 days.

The proposal, he said, is a last-ditch effort by frustrated city officials to impress upon state and federal officials that more help is needed to fight a problem created by them.

“Encinitas last night determined that the city is unable to cope with the tide of undocumented aliens caused by open borders,” LaMarsh said. “We looked at our history and our energies, and what we found is that we tried this and it didn’t work, and that we tried that and it didn’t work, either.

“We went to the doors of all the people who were supposed to have the solutions to the problem. Every one of them had their arms crossed, either saying ‘It’s not my job’ or that they didn’t have the manpower to get the job done.”

City Manager Warren Shafer said Wednesday that, by declaring a state of emergency, the city would accomplish two things. “We’re helping to raise what we hope will be national attention to this issue in our community.

“And hopefully it will also avail ourselves to any state and federal resources that may be available to provide a solution. We don’t know if it will work in the long run. But what we’ve been trying in the short run hasn’t worked to focus attention on our problem either.”

The foundation of the city’s migrant strategy is a 105-page report featuring 26 recommendations, including the development of a bilingual brochure with information on the criminal justice system and providing incentives to growers and businesses to develop low-income housing for their employees.

It also includes a curbside hiring ordinance that would, in part, impose fines on employers who hired workers from local street corners. Admitting that its 3-month-old employment center had stagnated in attempts to locate jobs for documented workers, the council directed city staff to research the ordinance.

Shafer said the city will send representatives to Orange County to examine similar laws in Costa Mesa and at least two other communities.

Migrant-rights groups, however, have said that the Costa Mesa ordinance is being challenged on First Amendment grounds.

“Both we and the American Civil Liberties Union will be closely monitoring any of the city’s proposed actions along that line,” said Claudia Smith, an attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA), a migrant-rights group.

On Tuesday night, several other council actions sent a message that it could indeed be a very long summer on the streets of Encinitas, migrant advocates said.

The council voted to dismiss two recommendations included in the report, including a plan to supply day laborers with bus tokens or van service to help get them to the city’s employment center, located on an isolated stretch of El Camino Real near Olivenhain Road.

Another rejected suggestion would have created a task force, using social service and church organizations, to develop migrant education and housing programs.

Gloria Carranza, transients issues coordinator for the city, said the council doesn’t believe it owes migrant laborers a ride to work.

“They felt it was the responsibility of the workers to get to the job center by themselves,” she said.

Likewise, Carranza said, the council was in no mood to create yet another migrant task force, instead believing that some church organizations were, on the contrary, part of the problem.

“The council felt that some of the religious organizations in the community were exacerbating the problem,” she said. “By giving away free food and clothing to the workers, they felt it perpetuated problems in the community.

“Because as long as these people know they have someone to give them food and clothing, they’re going to stay here. And that’s not the goal of the council.”

CRLA attorney Smith said the workers are attracted by employment opportunities, not bag lunches.

“These people come here because there are jobs available,” she said. “They don’t come because they know they’re going to get a bag lunch and a blanket from any migrant group.”

Smith also said she didn’t buy the city’s argument that migrants are attracted to Encinitas more than to any other North County community. She has questioned the city’s claim that more than 600 Guatemalans live in camps within Encinitas limits; she places the figure at about 150.

“I also didn’t believe it when the Border Patrol spokesman told the council Tuesday night that 32% of all migrants taken into custody in the North County were arrested in Encinitas,” she said.

“When I questioned him after the meeting, he admitted that the statistic really didn’t mean that much and was so high because Encinitas had put so much pressure for Border Patrol activity in the area.

“That’s the point,” she said. “It didn’t mean that there were so many more migrants here. It’s just all part of the smoke-screen-and-mirror effect the city is trying to use to show it has an undocumented alien problem.”