L.A. Supervisors Decline to Join Prop. 187 Challenges

Reacting cautiously in the face of the strong public support for Proposition 187, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Thursday declined to join other local government bodies in pursuing an immediate legal challenge to the anti-illegal immigration initiative.

The decision, coming a day after the Los Angeles City Council and the Los Angeles Unified School District decided to press lawsuits, appeared to signify an acknowledgment both of the measure’s 59%-41% margin at the polls and an emerging backlash against a rash of lawsuits--eight statewide at last count--to block its implementation.

“The voters have made it quite clear in all of the supervisorial districts that they don’t want a lawsuit,” said Supervisor Mike Antonovich, a strong supporter of Proposition 187.

The board did, however, agree to direct county employees, who are responsible for administering many of the health and social welfare services covered under the initiative, not to implement any portions of Proposition 187 until the legal challenges are sorted out.

The first scheduled showdown will come Wednesday, when the state attorney general’s office and civil rights lawyers are due in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles to debate a motion to suspend the sweeping measure, which bans illegal immigrants from publicly funded educational, social service and non-emergency health programs and requires officials to turn in the names of suspected illegal immigrants to state and federal authorities.

In other developments on the second day after California’s landmark vote:

* Several hospitals and clinics in the Los Angeles area reported a decline in patient levels. The drop-off, officials said, was an indication that illegal immigrants are fearful of being reported to federal authorities and are beginning to stay away--even though medical facilities are not currently denying services or turning in anyone.

* A series of small anti-187 rallies continued, including walkouts at UCLA and several other UC law schools. Former state Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, a UCLA faculty member, addressed the demonstrators, saying passage of the ballot measure only served to heighten already strained racial and ethnic tensions in the Los Angeles area.

* A coalition of more than 50 Asian American organizations prepared flyers in seven languages to urge undocumented Asian residents to remain calm and continue seeking government services. Estelle Chun of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California said her agency heard from an undocumented Korean woman who was afraid to call police--for fear of being reported--even though her husband had beaten her.

* Co-sponsors of the initiative gave conflicting messages in interviews about how they would like to see forthcoming state regulations for implementing Proposition 187 worded. Co-author Harold Ezell said the word suspect should not be included in any regulations because it is too inflammatory. But Ron Prince, who headed the pro-187 campaign committee, says he has no problems with the word, which appeared several times in the ballot measure.

Prince also said that the flurry of lawsuits by groups ranging from the school boards to the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, could lead to countersuits and recall elections.

“I can certainly see the beginnings of a class-action lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District--in others words, we’ll sue them for suing us,” he said. “And we do have in the state of California a recall process. That may very well come into play.”

Supervisors’ Decision

The county board said it would monitor the progress of lawsuits already filed in state and federal courts rather than prepare its own. The board indicated that it may still pursue some legal remedy, on its own or by joining one of the challenges already filed, depending on how strictly the state signals it will interpret and enforce the measure.

Within hours of the measure’s passage, lawyers representing civil rights organizations filed suit in the Los Angeles federal district court to thwart its implementation. U.S. District Judge Matthew Byrne Jr. scheduled a hearing on the legal arguments for next Wednesday and strongly indicated that until then, he wanted enforcement of the entire measure held in abeyance.

The county supervisors’ decision, made in closed session, appeared to reflect the potential pitfalls of opposing a measure that has garnered widespread public support.

“We haven’t been deluged, but we are getting calls from people with the general sentiment being they don’t want public money expended on a lawsuit to oppose this,” said Fred MacFarlane, press deputy to Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke. “I would assume the other offices are getting this as well.”

The measure was supported by a narrow majority of voters in Burke’s South Los Angeles district, which has mostly Latino and African American residents.

“The decision today was a positive sign that elected officials are listening to the public,” Antonovich said.

Supervisor Gloria Molina, who had initially urged the board to file its own federal lawsuit, had a different take. “My interest is in protecting the well-being of the county and its residents, but first I have to find out what kinds of directions the governor is going to give us before we go into court to contest anything,” she said.

“We are interested in being effective and not just in grandstanding, and that is why we are taking a wait-and-see attitude,” said Supervisor Ed Edelman. “Granted, when an initiative passes, the voters have spoken, but they may have spoken in an unconstitutional way.”

The board made one exception to its business-as-usual policy for employees. Sheriff’s deputies will be asked to enforce the initiative’s crackdown on the illegal sale and possession of fake identity cards.

Hospitals and Clinics

From South-Central to the Eastside, hospitals and clinics in Los Angeles began reporting declines in patient numbers in the wake of the proposition’s landslide victory.

“We have some reports, mostly from inner-city hospitals, that their clinics and emergency room patient loads have dropped off,” said David Langness of the Hospital Council of Southern California. “It means people are jeopardizing their health for fear of being turned in to the INS. We want to emphasize that we’re not turning anyone in.”

Langness, whose agency was a vocal critic of Proposition 187, said the drop-off in patients Thursday could not be attributed to the often-heavy morning rain. “We saw some drop-off Wednesday and it continued today,” he said.

The patient load dropped by about two-thirds at the Community Health Foundation of East Los Angeles on Whittier Boulevard, officials reported. The cause was clearly fear of Proposition 187, not the rainy weather, said Executive Director Rodolfo Diaz.

“People are scared to come in. People are staying home,” Diaz said. People have heard about Proposition 187 and they think they are going to get reported.” The clinic, which serves about 138,000 patients a year and receives about a third of its budget from state funds, will continue to treat all people regardless of immigration status, he said.

At the Arroyo Vista Family Health Center in Highland Park, as many as 60 patients--more than a third of the daily schedule--failed to show up for appointments Wednesday and the trend continued on Thursday.

Clinic director Lorraine Estrada blamed the cancellations on fear of the impact of Proposition 187.

“People are scared,” said Estrada, who said staffers were working the telephones trying to reassure patients, mostly women and children. “We’re spending a lot of time on the phone.”

Some health facilities, however, reported no appreciable drop in patient levels.

At the state level, officials of the California Assn. of Hospitals and Health Systems said they have advised their members to continue business as usual.

“Wait for further guidance from the courts or the (state) Department of Health Services prior to implementation of the provisions of Proposition 187” read a memo faxed by the association to its member hospitals.

Hours after the ballot measure was approved, Gov. Pete Wilson issued an executive order directing health care providers to discontinue prenatal services for illegal immigrants as soon as legally permissible and to halt new admissions of illegal immigrants to nursing homes.

But hospital association attorney Lilly Spitz said Thursday that the organization’s business-as-usual directive applies to both categories of services. Los Angeles County will also continue providing prenatal services, based on advice of its county counsel.

Despite the governor’s executive order, a memo issued by the Department of Health Services says that prenatal benefits cannot be terminated without proper notice. A spokeswoman for the governor explained that the state is required to give a 60-day notice before ending such benefits under the Medi-Cal program.

Federal Reaction

Federal Immigration and Naturalization Service officials said Thursday that they were studying Wilson’s request that the INS assist in verifying whether applicants for publicly funded services are legally entitled to them.

Carl Stern, chief spokesman for U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, said the INS wants to determine the “burden” that providing access to the agency’s records would create in terms of staffing. Wilson, noting that California already uses the system to check on legal residency for driver’s licenses and state-funded employment and training services, made the request in a letter to President Clinton Wednesday.

Stern pointed out that California pays the INS for the use of the system.

A senior White House aide said that the Administration felt no urgency about questions arising from passage of the measure because it “could be enjoined for a year or more” in state and federal courts. He said that lawyers were studying whether any of its provisions violate existing federal law and would therefore lead to a mandatory cutoff of federal funds.

On Wednesday, 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 excluded from California public schools. In issuing his order, he cited a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Plyler vs. Doe.

Asked whether the Justice Department would consider bringing a suit of its own against Proposition 187 or would join suits already filed, Reno said: “Speculation would be premature. I want to make an informed judgment based on what the state of California does, how it construes the proposition, how they propose to implement it.”

Contributing to today’s coverage of Proposition 187 were Times staff writers John Broder, Carol Chastang, Larry Gordon, Nancy Hill-Holtzman, Shawn Hubler, John Hurst, K. Connie Kang, Robert J. Lopez, Patrick J. McDonnell, Ron Ostrow, Doug Shuit and Beth Shuster.

The Prop. 187 Paperwork

Some of the Proposition 187 paperwork was mailed last week before passage of the initiative. This form, for use in turning in children and adults with “apparent illegal immigrant status,” was sent to health, social service and law enforcement agencies, as well as public schools, which are enjoined from using it. State officials said Thursday that so far no one has been reported.