Coe hopes terror revives spirit of Prop. 187 // Immigration - There is a new incarnation of the bitterly fought measure, with a Sept. 11 theme

By Minerva Canto

The Orange County Register

January 2, 2000

Every night, Antonio Gonzales says goodnight to his daughter and wishes her "sweet dreams. " Then, he goes to bed, wishing for himself the dream-come-true of "another 187."

"I wish that these yahoos would put another 187 on the ballot so we can get more Latinos to vote," said Gonzales, president of the Southwest Voter Registration Project.

If the proponents of Proposition 187, which was to cut off public benefits to illegal immigrants, get their way, Gonzales' dream will come true.

Prop. 187, approved by voters five years ago, is close to spawning a sequel. Advocates want to revive the measure now that the courts have stopped its implementation.

But if it comes to pass, this time around will be very different.

There is the rosy-cheeked economy, the lack of support from formerly staunch supporters in the Republican Party, and an emerging Hispanic political organization bolstered by a record number of Hispanic voters, say political analysts and human-rights activists.

All this, they say, has undercut the anti-immigrant sentiment that fueled 187's success.

And much of that is because of Prop. 187 itself.

"People have woken up," said Juan Manuel Ferreira, who helps prepare immigrants to become citizens at Casa del Pueblo community center in La Habra. "Before 187, I had to present immigrants with a long list of reasons to become citizens. Now, they come to me and say, `Yes, I understand why I have to do this. We have to demand our rights. ' They've seen their futures threatened."

Even supporters of the new measure, dubbed the Save Our State 3 amendment, concede they have a monumental task ahead of them.

To place the proposal on the November ballot, they must gather 900,000 signatures "one by one," said Barbara Coe, chairman of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, the Huntington Beach-based organization that co-sponsored the original measure and is co-sponsoring the sequel.

Still, Coe and others in her organization say they remain confident it will be successful.

"We wouldn't be doing it if we didn't think so," said Dean Ellison, organization president.

They first had the idea to revive the issue while discussing the death of Prop. 187 at a Westminster diner.

They decided to design the new measure as a constitutional amendment to prevent it from meeting the same fate as 187, most of which was found to be unconstitutional. It also has a companion measure that would guarantee a state fight all the way to the highest court, preventing it from dying in a court settlement like its predecessor did in September.

Ellison and Coe note that some nationwide polls indicate that a majority of respondents favor reforming immigration laws and fortifying U.S. borders.

"Public-opinion polls across the country show that most folks still think immigration is too high," said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

For Lupe Moreno, a 42-year-old mother of four from Santa Ana, the debate is personal, and has had significant consequences.

She was driven to fight illegal immigration after nearly two decades of watching her father direct an extensive immigrant-smuggling operation with safe houses throughout the state.

The Hispanic woman distributed fliers and posters, collected signatures and spoke in favor of Prop. 187. For that, she weathered threats and name-calling from people who said she was a traitor to Hispanics.

Much of the criticism came from her own husband.

"I've been with my husband since I was 12, but this is the one issue that we haven't been able to agree on. He told me this is what caused our divorce," Moreno said.

The end of her 25-year marriage becomes final in a few weeks.

Moreno has no regrets, saying, "I consider myself an American before anything else."

"I think about it every day, but if I had to do it again, I would do it," she said.

What mainly drives Moreno and others to support chopping off public aid to undocumented immigrants is their belief that taxpayer dollars should go exclusively to legal residents and citizens.

Camarota thinks that sentiment may have withered in the current healthy economy.

"People often vote with their pocketbooks," he said.

Amin David of Los Amigos of Orange County, a grass-roots civil-rights group, agrees: "Nobody cares about little Juan Gonzales cutting the lawn or cleaning the house anymore."

Opponents of Prop. 187 promise to wage a tougher battle against the new initiative.

"We are going to react more rapidly this time," said Benny Diaz, Orange County district director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. "This one is a proposition that we will be very prepared for."

It was Prop. 187 that placed immigrant rights at the top of the agenda of Hispanic politicians and activists. And, hand in hand with welfare reform, it was what helped push a record number of immigrants to become citizens and a historic number of Hispanic voters to go to the polls in the 1996 presidential election.

The number of Hispanic voters grew from about 570,000 in 1990 to about 950,000 in 1994, the election during which Prop. 187 was on the ballot. And in 1998, an unprecedented 1.15 million Hispanics voted.

"All that is in part attributable to 187 as sort of a scare tactic," said Gonzales, who is based in Los Angeles.

LULAC and other Hispanic groups already are discussing a strategy to strike against the new measure. Though they won't mention specifics, they hint that they will be forming coalitions with other minority groups to gain political strength.

Many immigrant-rights activists believe they took too long to respond to Prop. 187, which they say kept them from running an effective campaign.

Alberto Ortega, who works closely with immigrants at the North Orange County Citizenship Program, warns against becoming too complacent.

"After 187 was supposedly defeated, people have an idea that if we beat 187, then we can beat anything," Ortega said.

Immigrant-rights advocates, however, are optimistic that there won't be a repeat performance. They say they are going to heed the scars from their first battle.

"No hay mal que por bien no venga," David said, repeating a popular Spanish saying that in English means there's a golden lining in every cloud.