2nd Anti-Immigration Billboard Removed

A controversial billboard on the California-Arizona border that called California “The Illegal Immigration State” was taken down Friday after the landowner became worried about his family’s safety because so many motorists were stopping to photograph and gawk at the sign.

It is the second billboard with the same message to be removed.

The billboard was put up a week ago with funds from the Orange County-based California Coalition for Immigration Reform. But the unidentified landowner, coalition President Barbara Coe said, became displeased with the attention of passersby.

The billboard read: “Welcome to California. The Illegal Immigration State. Don’t Let This Happen To Your State.” Coe said she intends to find another nearby site for the billboard.

The sign, 10 feet high and 40 feet long, faced motorists traveling from Arizona into California along Interstate 10 near Blythe.

When the message was first displayed last summer, it prompted criticism from numerous Latino community groups and leaders, including Mario Obledo, former state secretary of health and welfare, who promised to tear down the sign.

But before Obledo and others could act, the sign was removed by an advertising company after other billboard clients were threatened with boycotts.

Coe’s coalition co-sponsored Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot measure that bars illegal immigrants from attending public schools and receiving social services and health care.