My Mistake on Proposition 187
In 194, California voters overwhelming passed an initiative that would have barred undocumented students from the public schools, stripped undocumented immigrants of all public benefits, requiring police to verify immigration status, and more. Proposition 187 became a model for the many state and local immigration enforcement laws passed in the early years of the new century.
In this Huffington Post piece, Frank Wu confesses error in fighting Proposition 187 in 1994 and failing to call it racist.
Some commentators, including Ruben Garcia and others. I explored the role of race in the campaign in this article (An Essay on Immigration Politics, Popular Democracy, and California’s Proposition 187: The Political Relevance and Legal Irrelevance of Race, 70 Washington Law Review 629 (1995)).
Here is Republican Governor Pete Wilson‘s campaign ad, which capitalizes on Proposition 187;
KJ