Immigration Sign Removed Amid Threats

A controversial billboard near the Arizona border that declared California the “Illegal Immigration State” was taken down Tuesday after threats to destroy the sign by Latino activists who consider it racist.

The billboard, paid for by the Orange County-based Coalition for Immigration Reform, was removed by Martin Media because of threats of violence and property damage by Mario Obledo, former state health, education and welfare secretary and president of the California Coalition of Hispanic Organizations.

Officials of Martin, the advertising company that leases out the billboard, said their decision also came after Burger King and Best Western hotels were targeted for boycotts because they had leased billboard space near the sign west of Blythe.

“Martin Media believes in free speech and the 1st Amendment,” said Connie Wauhob, a Martin manager in Bullhead City, Ariz. “But this is not our message. We were providing it for our customer. The billboard was being threatened along with customers on the other side of the billboard.”

Obledo, who helped found the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, praised the decision to remove the sign, but he said he will watch for any other billboards that may be insensitive to immigrants and minorities.

“It’s a victory for America,” Obledo said from his office in Sacramento. “It’s a victory against hatred and against racism.”

He said he still plans to have a rally at the billboard at 2 p.m. Saturday in order to thank his supporters and display his resolve to act against any future such signs.

“I will tear them all down,” he said, adding that the method he would use would depend “on where they are and how we can get to them.”

“I intended to set fire to the sign, but the sheriff called and said there was a natural gas plant nearby,” Obledo said. “I didn’t want to endanger the town of Blythe, so we decided we were going to paint it instead.”

Barbara Coe, president of the Coalition for Immigration Reform, which co-sponsored Proposition 187, the measure that bars illegal immigrants from attending public schools and receiving social services and health care, had planned to bus supporters to Blythe for their own rally.

The sign, erected May 7 along Interstate 10, read: “Welcome to California, the Illegal Immigration State. Don’t Let This Happen to Your State.”

Coe said she and her supporters are not going to take this latest action “lying down.”

“We’re studying our alternatives right now,” Coe said. “But I can tell you one thing, this puppy is going back up as well as more. So if Mr. Obledo thinks his terrorist tactics have accomplished a great deal, he is very wrong.”

Coe said she was angry at the advertising company’s action and said Martin Media succumbed to “terrorist tactics.”

“They ripped it down this morning,” Coe said Tuesday. “They just broke the contract, canceled it because two other customers who advertised through them had received the same threats.”

Coe has denied the billboard’s message is racist and has said the successful campaign of Proposition 187 was not designed as an attack on Latino immigrants.

Although Proposition 187 passed by a wide margin in 1994, U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer in Los Angeles issued an order in March forbidding its implementation. The measure had been bogged down in court since its passage, when opponents filed constitutional challenges to key provisions.

Proposition 187 supporters appealed Pfaelzer’s ruling to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where the case now sits.

Wauhob from Martin confirmed that Best Western hotels and Burger King, which had bought billboard space opposite the controversial billboard, had been targeted by Latino organizations for economic boycott and damage to their signs.

Representatives of those companies could not be reached for comment.

Removal of the billboard brought cheers from Latino leaders in Orange County.

“I’m really very happy,” said Enriqueta L. Ramos, a Rancho Santiago Community College trustee. “I had heard a lot of people saying they would stop buying burgers from Burger King at UCI, Santa Ana College and Cypress College.”

Ramos said she doesn’t believe the sign had any effect on the flow of immigrants.

“In fact, some of my friends who traveled from Texas and saw the sign recently laughed at it because they took it as if saying, ‘If you’re Mexican, you’re welcome here.’ ”

Gil Flores, state director for the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, called the billboard’s removal “wonderful news not only for Latinos but for all Californians.”

Santa Ana attorney Jess Araujo, who had originally criticized the billboard as “outrageous and grandstanding at its worse,” was glad the media company took it down.

“In a way that is probably the most sensible thing to do, it defuses the problem at least for now,” Araujo said. “And if we’re lucky, it will not resurrect its ugly head again.”

Alex Nogales, president of the Los Angeles-based National Hispanic Media Coalition, said he had mixed feelings about the sign’s removal.

“In fact, I’m very disappointed that [the sign] came down,” Nogales said, “because the rest of the country has got to know it was there. When we have a sign that is so obviously racist, people need to know.”