Prop. 187 Backers Pushing New Initiative

The Orange County grass-roots organization that launched the nation’s most controversial attack on illegal immigration in 1994--polarizing California in the process--is pushing another statewide initiative in a bid to deny illegal immigrants most public services.

Proposition 187, approved by 60% of California voters, barred the state from providing public services such as health care and education to illegal immigrants. That measure, which died last summer after being stalled by court rulings for years, spawned protests across the state and is credited with pushing 1 million Mexican residents to become citizens.

With his proposed new initiative, author Ron Prince wants to change the state Constitution to force California to conform to federal immigration laws, which prohibit state and local governments from providing benefits to illegal immigrants unless a state passes a law allowing it. Prince’s initiative also would prohibit the state Legislature from approving any such law.

While Prince’s “Save Our State” initiative, filed with the state attorney general’s office Nov. 2, would not deny public education to the children of illegal immigrants, it would require the state to count the number of illegal immigrants on each campus. Even so, critics say the measure is as divisive and as unconstitutional as its predecessor.

But Prince says he has consulted with several legal experts who say his new initiative is legally sound.

“It’s an effort to compromise, to build a national consensus to deal with this problem,” said the 51-year-old chairman of Save Our State, an Orange County group that put Proposition 187 on the ballot. “The best way to develop that consensus is to step back and collect the data that proves our point. I am not trying to send a message to the governor or to anyone else. This is the [federal] law, and we will expect the governor and everyone else in the state government to obey it.”

Prince also has filed language with the state seeking to place a companion measure on the ballot that would force the governor to defend initiatives all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and allow proponents to be co-defendants when the initiatives are challenged in court. That is in reaction to Democratic Gov. Gray Davis’ decision not to pursue appeals of Proposition 187 once he took office earlier this year.

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The attorney general’s office expects to complete its review of the initiative language on Dec. 27, said Diane Calkins, initiative coordinator. Save Our State would then have 150 days to collect the 670,816 signatures to get the measure on the November 2000 ballot.

Although Proposition 187 was never enacted, its message was received on Capitol Hill. In 1996, the U.S. Congress passed immigration and welfare reform laws that called for stiffer penalties for immigration-related offenses and mandated that legal immigrants will not end up on welfare after being brought here by their families. Congress also strengthened the enforcement authority of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

In California, where the state Republican Party endorsed Proposition 187’s ideology and supported it financially, the measure stirred racial animosities and drove minorities, especially Latinos, to become Democrats and helped to elect Democratic leaders at all levels of government.

“This is another invitation for us to come on down,” said Steven Ybarra, chairman of the California Chicano/Latino Caucus. “ You can’t ask people to work in your fields, care for your old ones, work in your kitchens and deny them the basic rights that all other workers have.”

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California Republican Party Chairman John McGraw said the party will not take a position on the proposed amendment until it qualifies for the ballot.

Mark Silverman, a lawyer with the Immigration Legal Resources Center and co-counsel in a lawsuit against Proposition 187, said, “It’s important to remember that this would not have gotten on the ballot last time if not for the huge infusions of money that came from the Republican Party. . . . The people who supported it succeeded in changing policies toward immigrants in harmful and anti-family ways.”

According to 1996 INS statistics, California is home to 2 million of the 5 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Of the total, 2.7 million are Mexican citizens.

“The illegal immigrant situation has worsened,” said Barbara Coe, head of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, which is co-sponsoring the initiative. “A lot who didn’t feel the pinch before are feeling it now because of the illegal tidal wave [that followed the federal immigration crackdown]. I think it will be a lot easier for us to get it passed this time.”

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Save Our State used 20,000 volunteers in 1994 to collect signatures and support for Proposition 187. Prince, who has not begun raising funds to back the proposed amendment, says he plans to use volunteers again. Since then, two of Proposition 187’s coauthors, Alan Nelson and Harold Ezell, have died and political consultants Robert and Linda Kiley have quit the cause.

“Last time we were amateurs, concerned American citizens who don’t like our country to be invaded and for others to abuse our hard-earned money,” said Gil Wong, chairman of Asian-Americans for Border Control. “This time, we have more lawyers working with us, and it will be easier. I want the public to understand there are minorities who are concerned about this issue too. The word we are concerned about is ‘illegal.’ ”

Even critics of the initiative say it should be easy for Save Our State to collect the signatures needed to pose the question on the ballot. But political experts doubt that voters will pass such a measure in today’s climate of economic prosperity.

According to USC political science professor H. Eric Schockman, only 10% to 15% of Californians consider illegal immigration an issue of priority. Legal experts across the state say the new initiative raises the same constitutional issues that federal judges rejected in Proposition 187.

“They could hire James Madison and still couldn’t make it constitutional,” said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union. “If anything, after the passing of the immigration reform acts and the welfare acts, Congress made it clear that it’s not the business of the states to be dictating foreign policy.”

California spent more than $10 million defending Proposition 187 in the courts, said Thomas Saenz, regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

“Basically, if this passes and we go to court again, we will end up with a big minus because this initiative has the same flaws,” Saenz said.