Proposition 187 More Than Just a ‘Mad as Hell’ Measure

On days when I wake up on the right side of the bed, the predicted passage of Proposition 187 hardly fazes me. On those days, its passage seems no more harmful than people voting for Ross Perot for President in 1992. They knew he wouldn’t win, but if it made them feel better to blow off some steam in the voting booth, then God bless America.

People may know that Proposition 187 will pass, but will it be enacted in any meaningful way? Not even its supporters seem to know for sure, which tells you something about the commitment behind it.

Will school officials actively target children of illegal immigrants, assuming they even know which parents those are, and expel them? No school official I’ve met would. More to the point, the consensus among educators is that some court would immediately stop them from carrying out that part of the proposition, because it violates existing law.

Will hospital personnel and social workers refuse services to illegal residents? No one seems sure of how that would happen, either.

Will those same professionals report suspected illegal residents to the authorities, as the proposition requires? Doubtful, at best.

Given that, what’s the point of Proposition 187? Why not dismiss it as nothing more than a “mad as hell” measure and simply roll over and go back to sleep?

Unfortunately, it demands more attention, if only because the latest polls indicate that 60% of the registered voters support it. We’re not talking about a radical fringe, or even the national constituency of 20% who voted for Perot. You can’t ignore an issue when 60% of the electorate supports it.

Just what is it that Proposition 187 supporters are trying to say?

The convenient comeback is to say that the measure is racially motivated. I won’t play that game, because it’s arrogant to say that all or even most of its supporters back it for racist reasons. Yes, it’s the height of stupidity to say that none do, so that argument merely goes round and round all day. Sure, I ask myself if 187 supporters would turn in an illegal Finn with as much relish as an illegal Nicaraguan, but they each must answer that question for themselves.

Two other niggling details get in the way of the racism argument. The first is that assimilated Americans have over the decades been equal opportunity naysayers when it came to immigrants: our ancestors railed against the white-faced Irish, German and Italians with the same gusto people now have for the Asians and Latinos. The other pertinent fact is that Latinos tell pollsters they’re as upset with illegal immigration as are Anglos.

Let’s take the 187 supporters at their word, that they’re genuinely upset that “illegal” residents get services. Inherent in that argument is that these “resident frauds” are costing us lots of money.

In that sense, resident fraud is not much different than doctor fraud, welfare fraud, insurance fraud, workers’ comp fraud, auto body repair shop fraud, Pentagon fraud and whatever fraud you want to toss in. Proposition 187, with its severe sanctions not reserved for the other frauds, almost seems to be saying that we don’t mind being ripped off, but it really irritates us when a non-legal resident does it.

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Ah, but it’s supporters say, there’s a clear distinction between the legal and non-legal resident. As a law-and-order guy, I’d agree with that argument in the abstract, but the distinction becomes increasingly fuzzy, especially in Southern California where the “contribution” of the non-resident is well documented. We know they provide services and perform labor and pay taxes and spend income in ways that don’t distinguish them from legal residents.

I’m not naive enough to think that every illegal immigrant comes north to work, or that none has found a way to rip off the system, but I would merely add those numbers to the fraud departments listed above. No better, no worse. By and large, the immigrants are here for jobs and, other than for a piece of paper, are indistinguishable from the rest of us.

This is all part of the trail of logic that will lead me to vote against 187.

And, yet, I’m angry too.

I’m angry because it has polarized the state for no good reason.

I’m angry because the proposition probably never would have surfaced had not the state’s economy slumped in recent years. State Department of Labor statistics show that 14.5 million people were employed in the summer of 1990, compared with 14.2 million this past summer. The unemployment rate went from 5.4% to 8.3% the last four summers. If those statistics showed economic growth, do you think anyone would have dreamed up Proposition 187?

I’m also angry because we take pride in being a country where laws are created in a deliberative process by elected representatives, and instead we get something like this, devised by people unknown to the general public and who, for all anyone knows, couldn’t get elected dogcatcher.

I’m angry because the government let us down on immigration control, and Proposition 187 is the result. All mixed in with smatterings of fair play and cost-savings are doses of racism, hypocrisy and fear.

When all is said and done, that will be the legacy of Proposition 187: It made everyone mad about something.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.