Illegal Immigrants Target of Proposal to Ban Services

A grass-roots immigration reform group began a campaign Thursday to place a wide-ranging proposal on the 1994 state ballot that would eliminate welfare, education and health care services to illegal immigrants.

“Overall, it’s an attempt to get a handle on illegal immigration,” said Harold Ezell, who was chief of the Immigration and Naturalization Service for the Western states from 1983 to 1989. Illegal immigration is a drain on public services, and “to me it’s not fair,” said Ezell, the co-author of the proposal with Alan Nelson, the INS commissioner under President Ronald Reagan.

The Ezell-Nelson proposal would exclude illegal immigrants from:

* Receiving public social services and would require all public social service agencies to report any illegal immigrant to the INS;

* Attending elementary or secondary public schools and require the institution to report illegal immigrants to the INS;

* Receiving publicly funded health care, except in emergencies.

The proposal, which will require 385,000 valid signatures by June to qualify for the November, 1994, state ballot, also would make it a felony to make, sell or use false documents to get benefits and would require local police departments to report any arrested illegal immigrants to the INS.

Ezell said his group, the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, might work with former Los Angeles County Supervisor Pete Schabarum, who is still crafting a measure that would eliminate most publicly funded emergency medical care provided to illegal immigrants and require all Californians to carry identification cards attesting to their legal residency.

“I think it is a situation whose time has come,” Ezell said Thursday.

A representative from the nationwide League of United Latin American Citizens said his group has been following the progress of the proposal, which he said blames immigrants for California’s social ills.

“Now they are blaming us for everything but the earthquakes,” said Art Montes of the Orange County chapter of LULAC. “We’re getting blamed for the urban areas and people are saying we’re not willing to educate you, but we’re willing to incarcerate you. We’re not willing to give you milk, but we’re willing to send you to the penal system.”

Ezell defended the proposal, saying, “We’re too generous in California. . . . The bottom line is this is a legal versus illegal issue.”

The petition drive will begin in mid-December, said Barbara Coe, chairwoman and co-founder of the coalition for immigration reform.

Montes said he hopes the proposal will be stopped.