The Hypocrisy of Immigration ‘Reform’

I’ve never met Barbara Coe, but she gets her name in the papers a lot. For all I know, she may be a sweetheart of a person who’s kind to pets, never exceeds the speed limit and always pays her bills on time.

However, why anyone would listen to her on immigration “reform” is beyond me.

But as I’m writing this, a few hours in advance of an Anaheim City Council meeting, apparently a number of people will.

What they’ll hear from her and others is reheated hash about illegal immigration and its ruinous impact on Orange County life. That those remarks will come at a time of unprecedented prosperity in the county, with forecasts for more of the same, may or may not provoke hoots from the audience.

Coe chairs the California Coalition for Immigration Reform and is part of the group that gave us Proposition 187 in 1994, way back when the state was bucking a recession.

That statewide initiative would have kicked children of illegal immigrants out of school and would have denied a variety of health and public services to illegal immigrants.

It passed with 59% of the vote, but a federal judge gutted it, much to Coe’s dismay, who wondered aloud how the judge could usurp the public’s will. Probably in the same way that federal courts once decided blacks shouldn’t drink out of separate drinking fountains or walk in the back door of businesses.

Coe and her cohorts sold Proposition 187 as a “fairness” issue. It wasn’t anti-immigrant, they argued. Just anti-illegal immigration. Their ability to link fairness and expelling schoolchildren struck sour notes even among some big names in the national Republican Party and, in fact, the GOP has backed off this kind of talk.

Not Coe. She’s back again, which leads me to wonder if the state is in another recession and we just don’t realize it.

She and others want the Anaheim council to authorize its police department to arrest suspected illegal immigrants. Presumably, cops will be shown videos on how to recognize one, and instruction will no doubt be couched in such benign terms as whether they can produce a valid driver’s license or some other paper.

Color Won’t Count? Right!

It will be sold as a colorblind procedure. Sure, and I wonder how long I’d have to wait for the call from the first white person in Anaheim without a license or other I.D. who gets arrested on suspicion of being an illegal resident.

This idea should die quickly, probably because the cops will balk. They already complain about the time wasted on bureaucratic demands, and I can’t imagine a worse task for them than Coe’s.

Arrest them and then do what? Put them in overcrowded jails for a few days? Deport them, only to see them back on Anaheim streets by the next weekend?

Anaheim police already have a permanent U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service presence at the station. When people are arrested for a crime and brought to the station, an INS agent determines their citizenship. Sometimes that results in deportation.

Until now, however, no one’s ever thought to arrest anyone on suspicion of being illegal.

Coe will get a lot of well-intentioned people to support her because they’ll say they’re taking a stand against illegality. Oppose them and you’ll be on the side of the lawbreakers.

Literally, I grant their point. In an ideal world, we’d have no illegal immigration or illegal anything.

The fraudulence of the anti-immigration effort in California, however, stems from its inherent hypocrisy.

Illegal immigrants equal criminals?

Ask former Gov. Pete Wilson. Ask U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Ask former U.S. senatorial candidate Michael Huffington, who railed against illegal immigration. Ask recent U.S. Labor Secretary-designate Linda Chavez.

All once employed noncitizens, as do thousands of other Californians, entrusting either their children or their homes to them. Some criminals.

Like it or not, noncitizens are part of Southern California’s work force. It is blatant cynicism for us to employ them by day and arrest them by night, knowing a fresh supply of (illegal) labor awaits.

Immigration reform? How about immigration fakery?

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.