"The whole issue is quality of life," she said. "It's not legal versus illegal. It's the overburdening of our system."
Kathleen Crusing, president of the Escondido Republican Women Federated, said the city cannot adequately plan for the number of illegal immigrants arriving every year. "If you have a dinner party and you plan for 12, but 24 show up, you've got a problem," she said.
The city's policies have also attracted criticism from some residents who said the city is blurring distinctions between illegal immigrants and Latinos here legally.
"It's not about immigration," said resident Bill Flores, spokesman for a community organization called El Grupo. "It is about brown people. . . . They are looking for a way to reduce the number of brown people."
Flores, a retired assistant sheriff in San Diego County, said he believed city leaders were reacting to a dramatic demographic shift.
More than 62,000 Latinos lived in Escondido in 2006, making up 44% of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That marks a significant jump since 1990, when roughly 25,000 Latinos lived in the city and were 23% of the population. The non-Latino white population, meanwhile, dropped between 1990 and 2000 by nearly 11%.
The elementary school district's demographics have also shifted. Latinos made up 48% of the student body in the 1997-98 school year and 65% in 2007-08, according to the California Department of Education.
Cornelius, of UC San Diego, said Escondido is a hotbed of anti-immigration activity in part because its population is largely conservative and in part because it has been a destination for immigrants -- both legal and undocumented -- looking for work.
The city is trying to make illegal immigrants' lives so uncomfortable that they will go away, he said.
"It's a pipe dream for nativists, because immigrants living in Escondido have invested too much getting there and starting a new life in the U.S. to be scared out of town by a bunch of new code enforcement practices," he said.
Immigrants say the city's hostility toward them makes it difficult to live in Escondido. The proposed parking ordinance, for example, is meant to discourage multiple families from sharing a single home, Councilman Gallo said.
Lucina Carachure, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, lives in a neighborhood littered with trash and full of boarded-up apartment buildings. On her husband's monthly income of $1,800, Carachure said, the family of five cannot afford to live alone.
So they share a two-bedroom apartment with another couple and their baby. Together, they pay $1,000 in rent.
Tomas Moreno, who has lived in Escondido illegally for 20 years, said he listens to Spanish-language radio stations to find out whether and where any license checkpoints have been set up.
He drives to his construction job and said he can't risk being turned over to immigration authorities or having his car impounded.
"They don't want cars in the street, they don't want a lot of people in the houses," said Moreno. "They don't want us here. That's the truth."
Nevertheless, Moreno said he had no plans to leave Escondido. He and his wife live in a quiet neighborhood with their four children, two U.S.-born and two undocumented.
"We have been here since we came," he said. "Even though we have problems, it's our city."
--
anna.gorman@latimes.com
