R.I.P. Sign for Prop. 187

Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot initiative intended to deny education, nonemergency health care and other public services to illegal immigrants, should be declared dead by its makers.

U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer has said again that regulating immigration is an exclusively federal responsibility. She made the pronouncement Wednesday in a final ruling that the ballot measure is unconstitutional. The judge’s decision should be allowed to close a sad and divisive chapter in California’s political history.

No one will gain from an appeal, yet Gov. Pete Wilson has already announced plans to take this matter to the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the next stop on a long route to the Supreme Court. Prolonging the legal battle will continue the impression of hostility to Latinos, which has done great harm to the state’s image as well as to its business opportunities.

Proponents sold the ill-named “Save Our State” initiative as a way to discourage the flow of illegal immigrants “enticed” to California by public services and benefits; in actuality, jobs and willing employers are the biggest magnets.

Approval of Proposition 187 was predictable, especially at a time when a prolonged recession and chronic downsizing had cost so many Californians their employment. During the bad economic times, many politicians, including Wilson, looked for a scapegoat and fixed the blame on immigrants. It wasn’t a new political ploy, but that doesn’t make it any less shameful.

Wilson the ambitious politician wrongly exploited anti-immigrant sentiment, but Wilson the governor was never wrong to attack Washington’s inability to control the nation’s borders and the federal refusal to fairly compensate California, which still pays more in educating and helping immigrants than it gets back from Washington.

Californians who want to reduce illegal immigration without trampling constitutional rights should endorse sensible solutions such as discouraging employers from hiring illegal immigrants, controlling all borders and working on bilateral measures to reduce the economic and political pressures that encourage illegal immigration.

The legal wrangling over Proposition 187 has taken more than three years and could go on for months or even years more. So could the human costs and the harmful consequences to California. Pete Wilson could stop the damage today by bowing to the logic of Judge Pfaelzer.