When she and her children left their home in Nicaragua seven months ago to join her husband, an undocumented construction worker in Los Angeles, 26-year-old Rebecca had no way of knowing that her children would become the targets of California voters' anti-illegal-immigrant wrath. Now she fears that her son, 5-year- old Jose, will be kicked out of school. "It's not my kids' fault that we are here," says Rebecca. "Why should they suffer?"
But with their state's economy in tatters, Californians are fed up with hosting some 1.6 million illegal aliens who cost California up to $3 billion a year in services. Last week, voters approved a draconian ballot initiative that cuts off education and all but emergency health care for illegal aliens and requires teachers and doctors to turn illegals over to the authorities.
Court battle. Now the battle over Proposition 187, the so- called Save Our State initiative, has shifted to the courts. Lawyers representing the California Medical Association and various other organizations are expected to file a flurry of lawsuits to halt implementation of the measure; a federal judge barred enforcement of the law at least until hearings this week, and a state judge barred expulsions from public schools until a hearing scheduled for February.
Almost no one thinks the measure will solve California's huge illegal-immigration problem. But the 6 in 10 voters who supported it wanted to send a message to both Washington and Sacramento. "It's a badly written bill," admits Encino housewife Grace Latt, who supported it. "But I think we have to start somewhere."
Both sides concede that Proposition 187 is unconstitutional and will require years of litigation, but the measure's backers hope the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn a 1982 decision that struck down a Texas law eliminating free public education for children of illegal immigrants. "SOS is a vehicle to get the issue back in the courts," says Alan Nelson, a former Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner who co-wrote Proposition 187.
Legal wrangles notwithstanding, Proposition 187 likely will prompt similar efforts in other states grappling with illegal immigration. Ronald Prince, an Orange County businessman who helped write the measure, says he has been contacted by anti- illegal-immigration groups in New York, Florida and Washington State. Says Prince: "You are going to see increasing interest in citizens getting together to deal with problems when politicians don't."
Inspired by the example of California's Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, who rode the anti-illegal-immigration sentiment to re- election, the new Republican-controlled Congress could also seize the issue. Republican Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming, an advocate of get-tough immigration laws, is expected to become chairman of the Senate subcommittee on immigration. "With the change of control in Congress, we should be able to do more," argues Proposition 187 co-author Nelson.
