Encinitas Sends Bill for Migrant Expenses to U.S. Government

The city of Encinitas on Monday sent a $281,695.25 bill to the U.S. General Accounting Office in Washington for money spent trying to cope with a migrant laborer problem for which local officials blame the federal government.

A letter sent to Charles A. Bowsher in the GAO’s Office of the Comptroller General by Encinitas Mayor Pamela Slater warned that attempts to deal with the thousands of both legal and illegal farm laborers who now make their home within its boundaries have pushed the city to the breaking point.

“If resolve cannot be found,” the letter concludes, “the problems of illegal encampments, open fires, increase in crime, exploitation of workers and increased community tensions will only escalate to insurmountable levels.”

The letter is part of a continuing city strategy to force both state and federal officials to acknowledge blame for immigration policies and practices that have led to an influx of migrant workers to such cities as Encinitas.

In April, Encinitas became the first city in California to declare a state of local emergency because of migrant laborers. Since then, however, few solutions have come from either Washington or Sacramento.

So last week, officials decided to send the federal government a bill to make its point.

“You’re darned right this is a bill,” said Councilwoman Anne Omsted. “This is a dead serious request for money from the feds. It’s also a way for us to say, ‘Hey, you guys! Wake up and see what’s going on in little communities like Encinitas.”

City expenses have included a hiring hall for legal workers, designed to keep job-seekers off sidewalks and private property, a raid on an encampment of migrant workers and security guards to keep them off the property, officials said.

Cleve Corlett, director for public affairs for the General Accounting Office in Washington, said he hadn’t seen the letter.

“Do you know how many pieces of correspondence we get every day?” he said with a laugh. “This certainly is a new one on me.”

Corlett said he could not say whether the General Accounting Office could respond to Encinitas’ request until the agency had received the letter.

City officials acknowledged Tuesday that a week after Congress painfully hammered out a new federal budget aimed at reducing a spiraling federal deficit is not the best time to request money from the government.

Their aim, they say, is to receive some of the more than $1 billion in State Legalization Impact Assistance Grants already earmarked through the 1987 Immigration Reform and Control Act to help cities defray such costs--funds they say are bogged down helplessly in red tape.

“You wouldn’t believe the red tape we’ve had to go through, trying to get federal money already outlined to do this job,” Omsted said. “The feds tell us one thing, and the state agency which disperses the funds tells us another.”

Added Mayor Pam Slater: “It’s around and around in circles. And we’ve got a real problem here. This is no fantasy we’re talking about.”

Richard Epstein, special assistant to the Health and Welfare Agency, the lead state agency in implementing the immigration-related funds, called the city’s letter “silly.”

“It’s inappropriate, even naive, for them to send a letter like that to Washington,” he said. “Cities just don’t write a letter to the GAO and make demands for funds. There’s an approved process for receiving SLIAG funds and they know that.”

Epstein said the city is confused over many of the requirements to receive such money.

“Someone is Encinitas has demonstrated a skill in confusing and distorting a not-so-complicated process,” he said. “I just get impatient about this. My experience in dealing with Encinitas is that they roll their requests into one big ball and talk about migrant services. That just doesn’t work.

“You have to talk in specific services you’re looking for compensation for. And there are some services there is no money for, programs such as fighting crime. The city doesn’t seem to understand that SLIAG is not the only funding source for their problems.”

Gloria Carranza, transients issues coordinator for the city, said the bill accounts for numerous expenses the city has suffered since December, 1988, when her office was formed.

The bill includes $118,428.72 for the operation of the transients program designed to bridge relations between migrants and other citizens by citing necessary programs. It includes $49,597.04 for a year-old job center the city has operated to help documented laborers find work.

The bill also includes $57,330.44 to pay for the cleanup of an encampment of Guatemalans on city-owned land near Interstate 5. City funds have also paid for subsequent security to keep the migrants away from the camp, located behind the Big Bear supermarket on Encinitas Boulevard.

“This won’t be the last bill, either,” Carranza said. “As other expenditures become known, we’ll send them along. They’ll probably get a bill from Encinitas every six months or so.”

Added Councilwoman Gail Hugo: “And if they don’t send the money now, if we have to wait six months for it, we plan to charge them interest. The federal government just has to be held responsible.”

In its letter to Washington, the city placed the blame where it believes it belongs.

“If the federal government, i.e. the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. Border Patrol, could control our southern border, as well as keep undocumented persons out of the city . . . the expenditures that the city of Encinitas has incurred would not have been necessary.”

John Weil, district chief of staff for Congressman Ron Packard (R-Oceanside), whose district encompasses Encinitas, said he supports the city’s concern--acknowledging that “local municipalities have had to bear the brunt of the illegal immigration.”

Packard, he said, had unsuccessfully tried to draft language into a recent immigration bill that would have required the federal government to set aside additional money to reimburse local governments for such costs.

“Wow that’s a lot of money,” Weil said, referring to the city’s $281,695.25 bill. “I wonder where they came up with the quarter?”