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Particularly in California, the fight reflects two very different views of immigration. Brown and her team have concluded that immigrants come streaming across the border seeking jobs with which to help their families and climb into the middle class. Wilson, on the other hand, argues that the immigrants are mainly attracted by the bounty of welfare benefits. These views yield opposite solutions: Wilson wants to stem the flow by curtailing the services. Brown prefers clamping down on the illegal workplace.
The Governor raised the temperature even higher last week, when he demanded an immediate "down payment" of $1.8 billion from Washington. Wilson argues that California, with 43% of the country's illegal aliens, pays multiple costs for its leaky borders: the number of illegal-immigrant felons has tripled to nearly 18,000 since 1988. The percentage of illegal-immigrant children in public schools rose to nearly 10%, or 308,000 students; providing health care for illegal immigrants costs state taxpayers $400 million.
Passing Proposition 187 -- known as the "Save our State" initiative -- would send a message to Washington that "we cannot educate every child from here to Tierra del Fuego," Wilson says. The proposition is breathtaking in its scope: it would render all illegal aliens ineligible for such state social services as welfare, food stamps and health care -- except the emergency care required by federal law -- and all public schooling, from kindergarten to state colleges and universities. State and local agencies would be required to report suspected illegals to the state attorney general and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the sale of false documents would become a state felony.
When it comes to schools, the initiative could prove to be more symbol than substance, given an enormous catch. In 1982 the Supreme Court ruled that public education is guaranteed to all children in the U.S. and that denying schooling to illegal immigrants violates the Constitution. The backers of 187 are perfectly aware of the legal obstacle and intend to use it as a vehicle for testing the law. As Wilson emphasized, "the save-our-state initiative is the two-by-four we need to make them take notice in Washington and provoke a legal challenge that will go all the way to the Supreme Court."
Though popular opinion is running with Wilson, Brown calls him a hypocrite for denouncing what he himself helped create while serving in Washington. In deference to his supporters in the agribusiness community, she says, "he was the leader in the U.S. Senate, fighting for the biggest loophole that has allowed in more than 1 million illegal immigrants, the 'seasonal worker' program." Proposition 187, she claims, will only make a bad situation worse, by throwing tens of thousands of children out of school and onto the streets where they will be trapped by "gangs, guns, drugs and graffiti."