California Could Lose Federal Funding for Family Planning Program Unless It Begins Verifying Immigration Status of Participants

The Bush administration on Sept. 3 issued a letter to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) that said the state must change the system it uses to determine the number of undocumented immigrants in the state's Family Planning, Access, Care and Treatment Program or risk losing federal funding for the program, the Los Angeles Times reports. California established Family PACT to help as many as 1.7 million low-income women avoid unplanned pregnancies by providing them with counseling, education and birth-control supplies. The program also offered prenatal services, annual exams and education about sexually transmitted infections.

Since 1998, the state used a statistical method to estimate the number of undocumented immigrants in Family PACT, currently calculated at 14%. The state pays for services used by those immigrants because federal funding can be used only for legal residents. The state receives $315 million of the program's $432 million annual operating costs from the federal government.

In the letter, the Bush administration said that California officials within 30 days must begin verifying that program participants are documented residents of the U.S. or the state would lose all funding for the program. The deadline was extended by two weeks after Schwarzenegger sent a letter to HHS that criticized the agency's "abrupt action and the lack of personal consultation," but the state on Friday began forfeiting 5% of federal funding for the program until it meets the federal government's terms.

State officials say the new policy could create a $262 million deficit in the state budget. In addition, the state Department of Health Care Services would need to employ 2,800 additional workers to conduct the service eligibility checks, which could raise the state's costs by 40%, officials said.

Schwarzenegger and other state lawmakers in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) urged her to push the Bush administration to reconsider the guidelines or overrule it. The letter, which was signed by Schwarzenegger, state Senate President Pro Tempore Don Perata (D) and state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D), said, "We strongly urge your support in reversing the recent directive." According to the Times, Pelosi and other state congressional members have written to HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt to reconsider the guidelines (Rau, Los Angeles Times, 10/3).

Editorial
The Bush administration's "demand isn't just wasteful; it's duplicitous," a Times editorial states. According to the editorial, "Immigration is a responsibility of the federal government, not the state," and "the feds should be stepping up to pay the full costs for illegal immigrants." The editorial continues, "The presence of immigrants in California who lack the legal status to use many public services represents a dual failure on the part of the federal government: It has neither prevented illegal immigration nor enacted comprehensive immigration reform to resolve the conundrum within its borders."

The disagreement over the eligibility calculation system "could be resolved amicably with an audit every five or 10 years to confirm whether the state's statistical formula is accurate," the editorial states, but "the administration's demand is extortionate." The editorial concludes, "True, the federal government shouldn't be picking up part of the tab for 86% of the women aided by this valuable program. It should be helping to pay for all of them" (Los Angeles Times, 10/6).