PACOIMA : Prop. 187 Opponents Plan March, Rally

Opponents of Proposition 187, the controversial November ballot initiative that would restrict health and education benefits to illegal immigrants, will stage a march and rally today in Pacoima that will culminate with a speech by Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon.

The event, sponsored by the Campaign for Human Rights in Pacoima, will begin at 10 a.m. at the Boys & Girls Club of Pacoima at the corner of Glenoaks and Van Nuys boulevards.

Organizer Franco Fernandez-Ruo said he expects 500 people to begin the march or join en route.

The Campaign for Human Rights is a coalition of local residents opposing the measure.

The march will proceed westward about a mile down Van Nuys Boulevard to a rally at Mary Immaculate Church, at the corner of Van Nuys Boulevard and Remick Street.

At the noontime rally, Alarcon and Bert Corona of the Latino civil rights group La Hermandad Mexicana Nacional will speak about the damage they believe Proposition 187 will cause to California’s economic, health and education systems if passed in November.

Fernandez-Ruo fears approval of the measure would permit school and health officials to report people they suspect are undocumented without any objective criteria.

“This could lead to the type of mass hysteria that we have already encountered in America in the McCarthy era and the mass internments of the Japanese and the Salem witch hunts,” Fernandez-Ruo said Friday. “That’s why we oppose this.”