A Huge Step Backwards

I came to Harvard three years ago from California. As I began my experience on the East Coast, all I could ever tell anyone was how great the state of California was. "It's sunny year round." "If California were its own nation, we'd have the eighth largest economy in the world." "California sets the trends for the rest of the nation."

I would proudly lay claim to coming from a state with these admirable qualities. However, I stand back now and view the recent events of the midterm elections and wonder how great my state is. I wonder how great it is because of the 18 percent margin of voters who passed Proposition 187 last Tuesday, November 8, 1994.

Proposition 187 eliminates most government benefits to illegal immigrants in California, including non-emergency health care, public school education, and most other social services. As well, the measure requires that teachers, doctors, and other government workers report to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and to the California State Attorney General anyone whom they suspect of being an illegal immigrant, or whose parents they suspect are illegal immigrants.

I do not write this commentary to dispute that illegal immigration is a grave problem in California. I do, however, write to dispute the use of such an inhumane, uncivil, and racially biased measure to "solve" the problem of illegal aliens entering the country, which, by the way, Proposition 187 does not even attempt to do.

Supporters of the proposition say that California's economy has been hard hit by the cut-backs in the defense industry and that unemployment is high in the state. Illegal immigration to these people only heightens the economic woes of the state by its use of social services and usurpation of jobs from legal residents. Many studies have been conducted reporting that illegal immigrants use state and locally funded services in greater proportion than they pay for these services in taxes. The problem with these studies is twofold: one, both sides do not agree on the numbers, and two, they do not take into account the allocation of tax dollars to state and federal coffers.

On the other hand, a study by the Urban Institute of Washington, D.C., whose numbers both sides acknowledge, reports that the share of taxes paid by illegal immigrants is greater than the share of the population they represent. In other words, they pay more into the system than the take out. The problem is, though, that what they take out in the form of social services and public education comes mostly from state government and what they pay in taxes goes mostly to the federal government. It is this misallocation of resources, which has caused the drain on the California economy, not the idea those illegal immigrants "live off the dole." As well, it is often difficult to get hard numbers on what illegal immigrants actually pay into the system as a result of taxes on their income or the food and other goods they buy. These studies also neglect to take into account the intrinsic value of illegal immigrants' labor to the California economy.

The kinds of jobs illegal immigrants take are the kind most legal residents would never perform. Illegal immigrants are exploited for their labor, working long hours in California's agricultural fields, in sweatshops in Los Angeles, as domestics, as gardeners, and as house cleaners in people's homes. I do not advocate this exploitation, but it is false to accuse illegal immigrants of taking away jobs from other residents.

The numbers and issues that supporters of the proposition use are accurate and valid. However, what is often neglected by the supporters are the very serious consequences of passing Proposition 187. As a result of the initiative, the state will probably save about $3 billion a year by withholding government services. But this figure does not take into account the costs, both monetary and social, of enforcing the measure.

In the first place, many of the statutes will be tied up in a legal battle over Constitutional issues. In 1982, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Player v. Doe that illegal school-age immigrant children are entitled to public school education. Proposition 187 bars these same children from California public school education. Thus, the state will engage itself in a legal battle with the federal government costing the taxpayers unknown amounts of time and money.

In addition, Education Secretary Richard Riley has already said that the federal government will withhold $2.3 billion of federal funding because of the passage of 187. The requirement of schoolteachers and administrators to report the residency status of any person for law-enforcement purposes violates the Federal Education Privacy Act.

The proposition will have similar costs in the area of health care. Although analysis measure that eliminating these services will save the state in excess of $100 million per year, California could potentially lose up to $9 billion annually from the federal government for the Medi-Cal program. The requirement for health officials to report the residency status of their patients violates federal confidentiality statutes.

An additional $3 billion is at risk from the federal government because the Aid To Families With Dependent Children Act requires certain confidentiality's be maintained by its agencies which the provisions of 187 violate. In total, California has put at risk $15 billion dollars in federal aid by passing Proposition 187.

However, aside from the financial costs to the state, there are other more important issues to examine, first and foremost being what is the cost to society? There is the health issue to consider. When illegal immigrant children are denied basic immunizations, what happens when those children contract TB and play at the local park with other children? The potential for the spread of disease and illness to the general population is immense. Moreover, illegal immigrants will be provided high cost emergency medical care that could have been avoided had they obtained the basic medical care Proposition 187 denies. Not only does this raise issue of financial savings, but it also will raises the issue of the definition of an emergency in relation to when legal residency status is questioned.

A similar social problem will arise by kicking students out of school. What are these kids going to do if they do not go to school? There is not a great chance they will go back to their native countries. Instead they are likely to hang out one the streets with the potential for joining gangs, getting into drugs, and committing crimes.

The proposition provides no measure for doing anything with the illegal immigrants who will be denied services. I guess officials hope these people will just go away. But the fact is they won't. As long as there are employers who are willing to hire them at low wages, illegal immigrants will remain in the state as well as continue to emigrate from their native lands. Instead of these drastic, radical measures proposed in Proposition 187, the state should focus its resources on enforcing already existing employer sanctions and strengthening the border control.

Perhaps the greatest social cost as a result of Proposition 187 is the racial biases it engenders. The proposition gives no guidelines as to who administrators and other government officials should question. Who is suspect? Every time someone goes in for medical care, is his/her residency status going to be verified? Or will there only be certain people that are suspect, such as those with dark skin, Hispanic last names or Spanish speaking accents? It is not going to be the blood haired, blue eyed, Timothy Smith, who will be questioned, but the dark skinned brown-eyed, lost Gonzalez.

I have already heard a story of a 10-year-old Mexican-American child living in the greater Los Angeles area coming home from school crying the day after the election. The kids at school made fun of him saying. "Hey, Mexican, go home!" Are we a society that, 30 years after the Civil Rights Movement, wants to teach our children to be suspect of someone because of the color of his skin? I certainly hope not.

Anamarie E. Huerta '95 is writing part of her senior thesis on Proposition 187.