Waiting for the smoke to clear

Illegal immigration is not a subject that lends itself to cordial chats over tea and finger sandwiches. You don’t wear a derby or your grandmother’s pinafore at such affairs.

You wear Kevlar on your chest and brass on your knuckles.

I knew that long before Tuesday’s stormy and often ugly Costa Mesa City Council meeting. I left the slugfest convinced of it.

If you missed the mushroom cloud billowing above the city’s civic center Tuesday evening, its source was the public word war over Mayor Allan Mansoor’s proposal to deputize some number of the city’s police force as immigration officers under the color of a little-used amendment of the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act.

Packaged by Mansoor as a “public safety” proposal, the mayor’s initiative would have authorized the training of Costa Mesa police officers by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement to screen detainees for U.S. residency status.

When the specter of Mansoor’s intent surfaced on the council’s preliminary meeting agenda just five days before its Dec. 6 meeting, the item immediately sparked an emotional fire that blazed through the Latino community.

That the proposal -- an extraordinarily complex puzzle filled with murky budgetary, police-resource, public-employee-contract, and civil rights nuances -- somehow circumvented the city’s normal process of informal deliberation and public discussion in at least one study session, if not several, and sparked understandable suspicions and fear. One iteration of Mansoor’s proposal envisioned every field officer receiving Immigration and Customs Enforcement training, with the authority to screen anyone for U.S. residency if detained for even minor infractions.

By a 3-2 vote, the council approved an alternative plan from Councilman Gary Monahan, who threw his proposal together at the eleventh hour to head off a full-blown fracturing of the community. Monahan’s blueprint calls for the city’s detective bureau and gang enforcement detail to receive Immigration and Customs Enforcement training as part of a countywide program proposed by Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona. Only arrestees suspected of committing aggravated felonies will be screened for legal status.

When Monahan uncorked his alternative at the outset of the council’s discussion, some hope surfaced that it would defuse the ugly word riot that most in the council chambers -- including the quartet of television news outlets in attendance -- anticipated. It didn’t.

In fact, the public -- already locked and loaded for an emotional gun fight -- seemed to brush aside the more even-handed, less-Draconian elements of Monahan’s proposal. What ensued was proof enough, for me at least, that Costa Mesa is simply incapable of an intellectually honest debate over illegal immigration without resorting to epithet, slander and expletive.

The debate of Mansoor’s proposal had all of that.

The low point? A guy so lathered up that he called the mayor a “racist pig,” qualifying the moniker with a word not even close to being fit for print.

Apart from the grimy side of the spectacle, the opposing arguments weren’t convincing.

Controlling illegal immigration, many asserted, is exclusively a federal responsibility regulated by federal immigration law. But that Congress amended the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement to provide training to local law enforcement agencies indicates otherwise.

In any case, the federal government relies on state and municipal law enforcement agencies to enforce federal law all the time. Arrests for and the early investigation of kidnapping and bank robbery -- both federal crimes -- are often conducted by state and municipal law enforcement agencies before being turned over to federal agencies.

The 3-2 approval of Monahan’s alternate plan is contingent upon several actions, including the Orange County Board of Supervisors approval of Carona’s plan and Costa Mesa’s participation in it.

When that debate occurs, expect fireworks there too.

* BYRON DE ARAKAL is a public affairs consultant and chairman of the Costa Mesa Parks and Recreation Commission. Readers may leave a message for him on the Daily Pilot hotline at (714) 966-4664 or contact him by e-mail at byronwriter@comcast.net.

20051211ir40hmknDOUGLAS ZIMMERMAN / DAILY PILOT(LA)Steve Nelson, left, a Minuteman supporter from San Juan Capistrano argues with Tim Lewis, right, a Costa Mesa business owner, outside the Costa Mesa City Council chambers Tuesday. 20051211id7qtakf(LA)