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Thursday, March 23, 2006 - 12:00 AM

Initiative would force state to deny some benefits to illegal immigrants

By Lornet Turnbull
Seattle Times staff reporter

Washington voters may be asked to decide in November whether illegal immigrants should be allowed to receive public benefits.

Bob Baker, a Mercer Island resident who heads a group called Protect Washington Now, has filed an initiative to force the state to deny illegal immigrants benefits like those in a handful of programs administered by the Department of Social and Health Services.

One such program provides free prenatal care for poor pregnant women and 10 months' family planning after delivery.

Another subsidizes child-care services for seasonal workers in the state's fruit orchards and tree farms.

Officials say they don't know how many of the state's estimated 136,000 illegal immigrants use these programs — most combine state and federal funding — but they know that many do.

Baker calls that an inappropriate use of his tax dollars.

"They come here and have their babies born at one of our hospitals at our expense; they have it all," said the 53-year-old Alaska Airlines pilot, who ran unsuccessfully for Mercer Island City Council last year.

"And that's the real tragedy. Where does it stop? Do we allow the entire nation of Mexico to come here?"

Baker volunteers with the Minuteman Project, which got its start in Arizona two years ago to spot and report illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico.

Critics have called members of the group vigilantes and racist.

Baker said he and his supporters should have no trouble collecting the 224,000 signatures needed to get the issue on the November ballot.

The measure is patterned after one passed by Arizona voters in 2004 that denied public benefits to illegal immigrants and forced residents to prove their citizenship to vote.

It bitterly divided the border state and forced the issue into the forefront nationally. Opponents branded it racist.

In Washington, Baker's initiative would require state employees to verify the immigration status of anyone seeking benefits not mandated by federal law — such as emergency medical care — and to report suspected illegal immigrants to federal immigration authorities.

"Public benefits"

The proposal does not define "public benefits," but Baker said they would fall generally in the categories of health care, the state prison system and education.

Employees and their supervisors would face misdemeanor charges for refusing to report violations. The measure also would allow anyone to bring a suit against state agencies for refusing to enforce the law.

Immigrant advocates say such a measure would spread fear in immigrant communities, making people reluctant to contact authorities or seek emergency help when they need it.

"Washington residents won't stand for this form of imported initiative," said Michael Ramos, co-chairman of From Hate to Hope, a coalition of 40 local groups formed to campaign against the measure.

"They're proposing to deputize social-service providers as immigration agents and hold them accountable for service the state provides, when it will be a rare case that an undocumented person will be provided such a service."

Estimated figure

Nationwide, an estimated 12 million people live in this country illegally, and are not eligible for such benefits as food stamps or Medicaid.

In fact, under changes to the welfare program, even legal immigrants — those here on green cards — are not entitled to such benefits, which are reserved for U.S. citizens.

But many noncitizen immigrants have U.S.-born children who do qualify, and federal law mandates emergency-medical care for everyone — regardless of their immigration status.

Though many states consider the influx a problem of the federal government's making, they are scrambling for ways to mitigate the drain on their resources; they feel it most in their schools and in health care.

Several have proposed legislation and initiatives to cut benefits to illegal immigrants or penalize companies that employ them.

California was the first.

Its Proposition 187, which sought to deny public education and other benefits to that state's expanding population of illegal immigrations, passed in 1994. But a federal judge later overturned major provisions in the measure.

Programs for poor

In Washington, DSHS administers at least seven programs for the state's poor, to which illegal immigrants have access. For those programs available only to citizens, application forms ask whether a person is a citizen to determine his or her eligibility.

Applicants are also asked if they are in this country legally, said Leo Ribas, operations manager and special assistant in DSHS' division of employment and assistance.

Unless citizenship is an eligibility factor for receiving benefits, the immigration status of an otherwise qualified person is not relevant.

In January, the state reinstated a health program for noncitizen children that it discontinued in 2003 in a money-saving move.

The program, with a two-year budget of $21.2 million, provides free health coverage for children whose immigration status makes them ineligible for any other medical programs.

Jim Stevenson, a DSHS spokesman, said that when the state ended the program in 2003, officials had hoped many poor immigrant children would shift to the state's basic health-care plan.

But there were out-of-pocket costs associated with that plan that some families couldn't afford, leaving many without coverage and renewing the need for the program, he said.

Immigration impact

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which is supporting many of the states' initiatives, said illegal immigration affects everyone.

"People see it in their daily lives — it affects their children's education, their trip to the hospital or the local Home Depot," he said.

"The federal government has dropped the ball on this and states are forced to deal with it because they are the ones paying the bills. It's perfectly legitimate for states to determine how they are going to spend their own money."

Baker thinks that if you dry up benefits for illegal immigrants — including jobs — they will go away. "You either address the supply side or the demand side.

The problem, he said, is most acute in emergency care, which illegal immigrants use for regular care: "They know [emergency rooms] have to accept them."

But advocates say that making immigrants fearful of seeking medical care when they need it poses a health risk that affects everyone.

And the idea that illegal immigrants will simply go away fails to recognize the role they play in the state and national economies.

"The reality is that much of our service sector relies on labor of immigrants — some of whom are documented and some of whom are not," Hate to Hope's Ramos said. "If you want to pull the carpet out from under the economy of this state pass an imitative like this."

Leon Donahue, of the Washingtonians for Immigration Reform, doesn't buy that argument.

"There was a time when Americans — black, white, yellow — were doing these jobs," he said. And Americans would do those jobs again "if employers were willing to pay a decent, living wage."

Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com