Some see immigration plan as a trend

Some say Job Center closure, recent action show the direction the council majority has in mind for city.Costa Mesa’s planned enforcement of immigration laws, which the council approved Wednesday, is being seen by many as a step in the direction the council wants to take the city.

To some, it’s not the first step -- the decision to close the Job Center at the end of this year was cut from the same cloth. But not everyone likes the pattern they see the council forming.

In March the council voted to close the city-run Job Center, which connects day laborers with contractors, after nearly 17 years of operation. Councilman Gary Monahan, who proposed the closure, cited improvements to the city’s Westside as a reason to shutter the center.

On Wednesday, the council voted to work with Orange County officials and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to have city police trained in immigration enforcement. Mayor Allan Mansoor has said the plan will make the city safer by targeting people who commit serious crimes.

A number of residents this week brought up the Job Center while talking about the immigration proposal, and some urged the council to keep center open.

Bea Almeida, who lives on the east side, told the council it disturbs her that the council won’t spend the money to operate the Job Center but instead appears to be going after Latinos with the immigration enforcement plan.

“You cannot reduce crime by taking the job away from a man,” she said.

To some, the Job Center closure and immigration enforcement will largely affect the city’s Latino community, which the 2000 federal census estimated at 31.8% of the city’s population of nearly 109,000 people.

Even plans to allow new zoning on the Westside are seen by some as a move to replace multi-family housing and businesses offering low-wage jobs with upscale condos and boutique stores, which would price poorer residents out of the area.

But supporters of the changes the council is making dismiss the notion that closing the Job Center and enforcing immigration laws locally are veiled efforts to change the city’s demographics. They believe the council’s true goal is nothing more than improving the city.

“I think they’re separate issues,” Mansoor said. “The Job Center, I just don’t believe it’s a function of government.”

City planning commissioner Jim Fisler, who supported the immigration enforcement proposal, said it’s not a plan to rid the city of Latinos, and he’s dismayed to hear name-calling at council meetings. One agitated speaker called Mansoor a “racist pig.”

“I was disappointed to hear all that rhetoric, but then [the same people] talk of harmony in our community,” he said.

“I think we should just try to become one community of laws and not try to frame this as a racial issue.”

The division in the community over these issues is highlighted by the split on the council itself. The Job Center and immigration enforcement decisions were approved on split votes, with Councilwomen Linda Dixon and Katrina Foley in the minority.

Dixon said she voted against the immigration enforcement plan because city police shouldn’t be asked to pick up the slack when the federal government has failed to secure the borders.

While illegal immigration may play a part in issues such as low school test scores and the closure of hospitals, it’s a cop-out to blame all such things on illegal immigrants, Dixon said.

“I don’t think it causes any bigger problem in Costa Mesa than it causes anywhere else, and I’m not really sure that it’s causing a problem, because I think that the businesses in Orange County would be hard hit if there weren’t people here working illegally at their places of business,” she said.

Foley said some of the council’s split decisions appear to her more symbolic than anything else.

“No matter how many illegal immigrants our city processes for deportation, we are not solving the open border problem, and that’s a matter of national security,” she said.

But that view didn’t prevail this week, and the council’s direction is not likely to change until November 2006, when Mansoor is up for reelection and termed-out Councilman Gary Monahan’s seat is open.

Dixon reminded the audience from the dais Tuesday that people can show their support or displeasure at the ballot box.

“If you don’t like what’s up here, you have an opportunity to go to the polls and vote,” she said.20051210iels0ukf(LA)Gary Monahan20051210h69nhwkf(LA)Linda Dixon 20051210i65y5ikf(LA)