BY HARRY RING
LOS ANGELES - Fighters for immigrant rights gained ground with a federal judge's ruling knocking out key provisions of California's immigrant-bashing Proposition 187.
California voters approved the ballot measure in November 1994, with 59 percent in favor.
Federal judge Mariana Pfaelzer ruled November 20, that California state agencies cannot deny undocumented immigrants access to federally funded health-care and social welfare programs, as Proposition 187 stipulates. The power to regulate immigration, she declared, belongs "exclusively" to the federal government.
She also struck down a clause that directed police agencies to report suspected "illegal" immigrants to state and federal authorities and for teachers and health workers to inform on the undocumented.
The decision also said the state cannot prevent children of undocumented immigrants from attending public schools. It said doing so contradicts a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision voiding a Texas law that denied public education to children of the undocumented.
But that decision, and Pfaelzer's ruling as well, does not protect those seeking a college level public education.
The federal judge upheld the 187 clause providing stiffer penalties for the sale or use of false residency or citizenship papers.
And she declared it legal to deny access to medical or social welfare programs that are exclusively state-funded.
Her decision voiced sympathy for voters' "justifiable frustration with the federal government's inability to enforce the immigration laws effectively."
The state attorney general's office indicated it will appeal the ruling, which is expected to be decided eventually by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ira Mehlman, state spokesperson for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supported 187, fumed that the court decision was "outrageous."
Gov. Pete Wilson, another 187 promoter, pointed to anti- immigrant measures pending in Congress, saying he was hopeful that if they pass, "much of Proposition 187 will become law."
That is by no means assured. While both major parties share a determination to crack down on immigrants, there are divisions between them - and within each of them - on the best way to accomplish this. These divisions were apparent during the debate prior to the vote on Proposition 187 and immediately afterward.
For instance, last December, Rep. Newt Gingrich declared he did not favor a national version of 187. A better solution, he said, would be to double the size of the Border Patrol and "seal off" the border.
This is basically the same as the approach being taken by the Clinton administration.
In good measure these tactical differences stem from a recognition that the immigrant bashing will inevitably spark a major social confrontation.
Prior to the passage of 187, more than 70,00 Latinos and other opponents of the reactionary measure poured into the streets of Los Angeles in one of the biggest demonstrations in the city's history. Soon after, more than 10,000 teen- agers marched out of their schools in an equally dynamic "vote no" demonstration.