Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Page 7
AFFAIRS OF STATE (Column)
Ten Years Later, Battle Over Illegal Aliens Still Going
By DAVID KLINE
When Proposition 187 passed in 1994, it looked like we finally were done debating the issue of illegal aliens getting benefits from the government. With 59 percent of California’s voters supporting the initiative, the issue had been decided—taxpayers would no longer have to pay for handouts to non-citizens.
Ten years later, it’s pretty obvious that things didn’t quite work out that way.
Proposition 187 was challenged in court by liberals who refuse to acknowledge the distinction between illegal aliens and immigrants who come to this state legally and work hard to become citizens.
Judges in San Francisco issued an injunction blocking most of the initiative from taking effect while the lawsuits were heard. The only provisions allowed to take effect were those prohibiting the manufacture and sale of fake immigration documents—practices which already were illegal.
The meaty provisions prohibiting illegal aliens from receiving free education, welfare and non-emergency health care never took effect. In 1998, a federal judge—part of President Jimmy Carter’s legacy—ruled that the initiative was unconstitutional, and incoming Gov. Gray Davis made no attempt to salvage the measure through appeals.
In the years since, things have only gotten worse.
California taxpayers have continued paying for government benefits to illegals—an amount pegged at $200 million per year by the independent legislative analyst back in 1994.
The schools have gotten more crowded with non-citizens—many of whom don’t speak English—to the detriment of legal students who need all the educational attention they can get.
Government-run medical programs face large funding shortfalls that threaten the health of taxpaying citizens, even as illegal aliens remain eligible for the exact same care on an equal basis.
To compound these problems, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has made it clear that he plans to sign a new version of last year’s controversial legislation granting drivers’ licenses to illegals.
Apparently unmoved by the Davis recall, which succeeded only because Davis was foolish enough to sign the original license bill, Schwarzenegger and Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, have been making it well known that they are negotiating a deal on a follow-up.
If Schwarzenegger follows through on his plan—one which would make it easier for aliens to illegally register to vote, among other things—the voters may have to take direct action yet again.
Two campaigns are under way to allow concerned Californians to keep drivers’ licenses out of the hands of non-citizens, and to end taxpayer-supported subsidies to people in this country illegally (a felony, incidentally).
The California Republican Assembly is overseeing www. SaveOurLicense.com, a campaign against the Cedillo/ Schwarzenegger scheme to give legal documents to illegal aliens.
On another front, some of the people behind Proposition 187 have regrouped at www.Save187.com, and are gathering signatures to put an improved version of the Save Our State initiative on the November ballot. Lawyers have written the new initiative with past legal defeats in mind, and hope that even the liberal judges in San Francisco would have trouble killing this one.
After all the twists and turns of the past decade, only an idiot would try to predict the ultimate outcome of these efforts. The only safe bet is that neither side of the illegal immigration debate will give up without a fight.
— Capitol News Service
Copyright 2004, Metropolitan News Company