Wilson Acts to Enforce Parts of Prop. 187; 8 Lawsuits Filed : Immigration: The governor orders prenatal care halted while a San Francisco judge bars expulsions from school. Religious leaders and Riordan urge calm.

The battle over Proposition 187 shifted quickly from the ballot box to courtrooms, to government chambers and the streets Wednesday as Californians, in a resounding Election Day mandate, ushered in a new era of stern restrictions against illegal immigrants.

Acting immediately to put the measure he vigorously campaigned for into effect, newly reelected Gov. Pete Wilson issued a toughly worded executive order directing health care providers to discontinue prenatal services and new admissions to nursing homes for illegal immigrants.

“The people of California have passed Proposition 187, now we must enforce it,” said Wilson at a morning press conference.

But Wilson was already encountering resistance in the form of lawsuits. At least eight were filed in various state and federal courts.

By midafternoon, a San Francisco Superior Court judge, acting on a lawsuit filed on behalf of the Los Angeles and San Francisco Unified School districts and the California School Boards Assn., temporarily barred enforcement of the proposition’s requirement that illegal immigrants be expelled from California public schools. In a separate order, the judge extended the order to public colleges and universities.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, a federal district judge presiding over a legal challenge brought by civil rights groups ordered that he be notified of any “substantive” enforcement of the initiative prior to a court hearing he scheduled for Wednesday. But spokesmen for Wilson and Atty Gen. Dan Lungren said they will proceed in implementing the non-education portions of the initiative because the judge did not directly order them to halt such actions.

Among the rapid-fire developments Wednesday after the measure’s overwhelming passage by a 59%-41% margin:

* The Los Angeles City Council voted 10 to 3 to direct city employees not to follow any provisions of the measure, except its crackdown on the sale and possession of fake identity documents, until legal challenges have been completed. The council also voted to pursue any and all legal action to overturn the initiative, which bans illegal immigrants from government funded non-emergency services and requires local officials to report those suspected of being illegal immigrants to state and federal authorities.

* Clinton Administration officials said they will take no “precipitous” action to cut off federal funding to California for health, education and social welfare programs, saying they prefer to wait for the results of litigation aimed at thwarting the measure. Analysts have said that as much as $15 billion in annual federal funding is at risk because the initiative’s requirement on reporting suspects runs counter to federal confidentiality requirements.

* Religious leaders and city leaders urged the community to remain calm and called on parents to continue sending their children to school without fear. “I urge all Angelenos to ignore rumors and to continue to express their opinions regarding this law in a peaceful manner,” said Mayor Richard Riordan. Several small anti-187 rallies took place, including a gathering of 200 demonstrators outside the Downtown Reagan State Building, but they remained peaceful.

* Seeking to dispel fears that the initiative could lead to a public health crisis, Wilson announced that he would “take whatever steps are necessary” to continue to provide immunizations or any other measures needed to prevent communicable disease.

As dawn broke over California on Wednesday, there was little evidence of panic or immediate service cut-offs among the affected population.

In communities from San Francisco to South-Central Los Angeles, it was business as usual, as illegal immigrants who work as day laborers, kitchen employees and at other jobs went about their daily routines.

“We can’t be afraid, we have to confront this issue,” said Juan Carlos, 30, the father of three, as he waited for work outside a Homebase store in Ladera Heights. “It is either this or starve.”

Carlos and fellow laborers said they did not believe sheriff’s deputies who patrol the area would enforce the proposition. Under the measure, law enforcement officers can only question those already arrested for other offenses.

In the Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau, where there has been nearly a murder a day this year, overworked detectives said they cannot even keep up with the growing roll of homicides, let alone ask arrestees for green cards.

“I don’t have enough detectives to check on my murders. So how am I going to keep track of that administrative lunacy?” asked Lt. Sergio Robleto, commander of the bureau’s homicide detail.

A wave of depression and introspection swept over public school campuses Wednesday morning, where just a week before student protests hit their peak with more than 10,000 young people walking out of class in Los Angeles alone.

On Wednesday, there were only a handful of small protests involving fewer than 500 students and school administrators grappled with ways to help students cope with disappointment.

“I’m just too stunned to do anything,” said Luz Castillo, a 17-year-old Reseda High School student who just two weeks ago organized an anti-187 walkout and forum.

There were sporadic reports of students staying home from school for fear of deportation or of getting injured in post-election violence. But Los Angeles Unified School District administrators said that a spot check of attendance showed it was near normal.

The school district’s efforts to blunt the impact of the law’s passage included establishing an information hot line, sending letters home to parents promising that their children will not be asked for immigration documents, and encouraging principals to hold on-campus forums about the law.

Even two of the larger walkouts staged Wednesday in Los Angeles attracted small crowds and ended without incident.

Students from Hamilton High School embarked on a five-hour, eight-mile odyssey that took them to four rally sites on the Westside.

At Olive Vista Middle School in Sylmar, about 50 students walked out in the morning, but were returned to school and suspended as part of a new district policy, announced Monday, to treat marchers like any other truants.

Even at Leuzinger High School, where a Proposition 187 protest sparked a racial brawl Friday, early morning rumors of violence remained just that: rumors. Instead, by afternoon, leaders from sparring African American and Latino groups ran a victory lap around the campus, some arm in arm, celebrating a truce hammered out during meetings with district mediators.

At one end of the spectrum, Long Beach Unified School District has vowed to uphold the new law, but asked the State Board of Education to postpone its initial implementation from January to next September, to coincide with the academic calendar.

Meanwhile, at a news conference shortly after classes began for the day, Los Angeles school board President Mark Slavkin, joined by representatives of the California School Boards Assn., announced they were lodging an immediate legal challenge to the initiative in the courtroom of San Francisco Superior Court Judge Stuart R. Pollak.

By late Monday morning, Pollak was also considering two lawsuits filed by students whose illegal status jeopardizes their ability to continue to attend public schools and universities.

Sponsors and opponents of Proposition 187 have agreed that a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision that granted illegal immigrants the right to a free public education would have to be reconsidered before the initiative’s education ban could take effect. Pollak, in handing down his temporary restraining order early in the afternoon, cited that decision, Plyler vs. Doe.

“There are serious legal questions here, to say the least, that need to be resolved,” said Pollak, noting that the Supreme Court ruling “seems to prohibit and invalidate at least portions of this measure.”

California Deputy Atty. Gen. Stephanie Wald, representing Wilson, opposed the order and argued that it was unnecessary because Proposition 187’s education provision would not take effect until January.

But attorneys for the plaintiffs pointed to provisions that appeared to take effect immediately and warned that some schools might try to prevent illegal immigrants from continuing in their classrooms.

They also told Pollak that Atty. Gen. Lungren had issued a memorandum informing school districts to implement the proposition immediately.

Pollak set a court date for Nov. 28 for arguments on whether to issue a preliminary injunction. He said he expects to postpone the eventual hearing until Feb. 8 if all parties agree at the next court date.

In Los Angeles, U.S. District Judge Matthew Byrne Jr. stopped short of formally and immediately barring implementation of the law, as a coalition of civil rights groups had sought. But he strongly indicated that he wanted enforcement of the entire measure held in abeyance until both sides have time to present legal arguments.

“I want the court to be notified of any firm--not rumor--indication of enforcement of (the measure) in this time,” Byrne said, extending the order to attorneys for both the state and four groups of organizations and individuals challenging the measure.

“It is the impact on individuals that I’m concerned about,” Byrne told Deputy Atty. Gen. Jon M. Ichinaga, who was representing state health agencies and Wilson’s office. He ordered all parties to advise him in writing “of any substantive” action to enforce the measure.

In the interim, Byrne said state officials may proceed with “in-house” preparations for enforcement of the measure without “violating the spirit of what I’m attempting to do.”

The lawsuit by the civil rights groups charges that the voter-approved initiative unlawfully intrudes on federal jurisdiction over immigration and denies various constitutional rights partly by encouraging discrimination against persons who appear or sound foreign.

“What we have in effect is no implementation, no enforcement of Proposition 187,” Antonia Hernandez, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, told reporters after Byrne’s ruling. “The judge made it very clear the spirit of his concern was it not be applied to individuals.”

Attorney Mark Rosenbaum, a director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the spirit of the judge’s order applies to all agencies with any potential enforcement responsibilities under the measure. “If there is any denial (of services) we will bring it to his attention,” Rosenbaum said.

But Ichinaga interpreted the judge’s words differently. He said Byrne clearly implied “he would raise a concern” if the measure was enforced in the next week. But Ichinaga added that Byrne “did not issue an injunction against the state. It seems to me he basically wants to know if it is implemented, but he didn’t make any express ruling that it shouldn’t be.”

At this point, Byrne’s ruling “doesn’t affect what we’re doing,” said Sean Walsh, Wilson’s press secretary, late Wednesday afternoon. “Our understanding is the drafting of emergency regulations at the departments will go forward.”

Walsh said it was not clear how long it will take departments and agencies in state government to develop the regulations necessary to begin implementing the measure and whether any would be completed before Byrne’s hearing next week.

Because Proposition 187 contains a severability clause, some sections could conceivably take effect while others were still being debated in court cases. But legal experts say suits could tie up portions of the measure for anywhere from two to five years.

At his dramatic morning press conference, Wilson made clear that he will do all he can to implement as much of the measure as he can--as quickly as he can.

“Starting today, we insist that California be a state that can set its own priorities,” said the governor, who used the illegal immigration issue as a cornerstone of his reelection campaign.

In his executive order, Wilson declared that prenatal services for illegal immigrants “be discontinued as soon as legally possible” and that further admissions to long-term care programs be granted only to legal residents. Later, a spokeswoman for the governor explained that the state is required to give a 60-day notice before ending benefits under the Medi-Cal program.

The governor added that the funds saved by terminating prenatal care be spent for such care for legal residents of California. He estimated that about 1,000 working poor women a month could take advantage of the money, which would amount to about $84 million a year. Long-term health care services for illegal immigrants cost the state about $6 million a year for the limited number of patients usually in care.

Although the ballot measure stated that illegal immigrants could no longer be served by publicly funded hospitals and health clinics, Wilson said he has the duty, as governor, to protect the health of the public. Therefore, he said, he will order all precautions be taken “to deal with any threat of communicable disease, whether through immunization or quarantine or other measures.”

Wilson also took pains to say that his Administration would not tolerate bigotry in the enforcement of the initiative. He ordered state agencies to prepare emergency regulations that ensure “the rights of all legal residents are protected and the provisions of Proposition 187 are implemented in a manner that avoids discrimination on the basis of national origin.”

Finally, Wilson sent a letter to President Clinton, with whom he has repeatedly clashed over federal payments for immigration costs, asking for his “full cooperation and assistance” in implementing the initiative.

“I trust that you will agree that the people of California, having exercised their right as voters to enact Proposition 187, should not as a result suffer any loss of federal funds,” Wilson said.

Clinton made no direct comments on Proposition 187, having been asked no questions on the topic at his post-election news conference.

Clinton Administration officials, following a plan agreed on before Tuesday’s vote, said they would make no immediate decision on how to act.

“The federal government relationship with states will remain the same for now,” an Administration official said.