Jan 18, 2004
The Return of Proposition 187?
Supporters of Proposition 187 have begun a new campaign called “Save Our State Initiative” to place a revised version of the measure on the November 2004 statewide ballot, the Los Angeles Times reports (Hernandez, Los Angeles Times, 12/20).
Proposition 187, which California voters approved in 1994 but the state never implemented because of court challenges, would have restricted access to nonemergency health and other public services for undocumented immigrants. Supporters of the revised measure must collect 500,900 valid signatures by April to place the measure on the November ballot. Campaign organizer Ron Prince said that the campaign over the past two weeks has collected “hundreds of signatures and several thousand dollars,” the AP/Washington Post reports.
“We don’t think it’s right to give welfare to illegal aliens,” Prince said, adding, “If you don’t do something about illegal immigration, you will never cure your deficit.” Prince said that the revised measure would survive legal challenges.
Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Association and national director of the immigrant rights group Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana, said that the revised measure is “symptomatic of the worst of what we saw of the 1990s anti-immigrant movement.”
