CARLSBAD - A trio of anti-illegal immigration advocates told Carlsbad's City Council on Tuesday that it ought to rethink its decision to contribute money to a proposed shelter for farmworkers.

Jeff Schwilk, leader of the San Diego Minutemen, said he was "shocked and amazed" when he heard that the council voted in February to give Catholic Charities $108,500 in seed money to start planning the shelter.

"We'd be interested in hearing the full truth about this," he said, adding that he's heard conflicting stories about what's going on.

Proposed to go at La Posada de Guadalupe - a homeless shelter in Carlsbad that Catholic Charities operates - the farmworker shelter would contain beds for up to 72 people, its supporters have said. The council agreed to kick in some initial funding in February for design work and promised the nonprofit organization that it might give a total of $2 million to the effort.

The money isn't from regular city sources - it comes from a special fund that developers are required to pay into when they build homes or commercial buildings on what has been farmland. Several years ago, the city took over administration of the fund, which had been handled by the state.

Schwilk and others told the council Tuesday that it shouldn't go into the housing business. First, Schwilk said, the people who employ the farmworkers ought to provide housing. Second, the farmworkers who might stay at the proposed shelter are likely to be illegal immigrants who shouldn't be working in this country, he and several others argued.

"If we provide housing for illegal aliens, we are aiding and abetting illegal aliens," Vista resident Michael Spencer told the council.

Mayor Bud Lewis said city officials have been told that the nonprofit organization will do a thorough job of checking the farmworkers' residency paperwork to make certain they are in the country legally.

Reached by telephone before Tuesday's meeting, Sister RayMonda Duvall, the organization's executive director, said that the organization is already used to checking people's paperwork. Staff members at La Posada de Guadalupe - a homeless shelter in Carlsbad run by the organization - do it regularly, she said.

That's not to say that some folks who are in the country illegally don't occasionally receive assistance at La Posada. If a rainstorm or extremely cold weather is forecast, the organization sometimes allows people who don't have proper documentation to stay a couple of days, Duvall said.

"We do provide shelter for humanitarian reasons, but that's very rare," she said.

The proposed farmworker housing will be different because those folks will have to prove they are employed on a farm and have legal status in the United States in order to stay at the proposed shelter, she added.

Located near the intersection of Palomar Airport Road and El Camino Real, La Posada typically serves up to 50 homeless men a night. Plans call for its existing collection of portable buildings to be replaced by a two-story structure. The downstairs would contain the existing homeless shelter program, while the upstairs would have beds for up to 72 farmworkers.

- Contact staff writer Barbara Henry at (760) 901-4072 or bhenry@nctimes.com.