Prop. 187 Sponsors Blame Foes for Illegal Immigrants’ Fears Over Seeking Health Care

While Proposition 187 is enjoined by the courts, those fearful of using public health care services can only look to the measure’s foes for blame, sponsors of the ballot initiative say.

“187 has had no effect at all on public health care yet,” Ron Prince said. “If there’s a misperception of such a prohibition, I’d look more at the misinformation campaign of our opponents (before the election) trying to incite that fear.

“There were so many lies spread about this that it’s understandable there could be some confusion. But the people to look to for responsibility for that are the people who spread those lies and deliberately encouraged it for political gain because they knew they weren’t true and they wanted to frighten the public.”

At the same time, Prince strongly defended the health care provisions of the initiative, which, if they take effect after court challenges, would bar illegal immigrants from receiving non-emergency service at any publicly funded hospital or health clinic.

“If they’re here illegally, they won’t be able to get it for free if it’s not emergency health care,” Prince said.

Proposition 187 co-author Alan C. Nelson went a step further, suggesting that opponents of the initiative should “work in a positive way” to persuade illegal immigrants to go back home.

“187 will make it a lot tougher for illegals to stay here, and that’s the intent,” said Nelson, director of the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service during the Ronald Reagan Administration. “Maybe some of these groups ought to tell them maybe they ought to be returning to their home countries and go to the schools and (medical facilities) there.”

David Langness, vice president of the Hospital Council of Southern California, bristles at such statements.

“Ron Prince and others like him need to look inward and perhaps accept some of the blame for this hateful initiative instead of trying to spread it out to everybody else,” Langness said. They were the ones who wrote it and got it passed, he added, “and now that the consequences are coming home to roost, in typical fashion they want to blame everyone else.”

“That’s not leadership, that’s cowardice.”