." ("Presidential Candidates and Immigration").
In 1994, California voters passed the controversial Proposition 187, a governor-supported amendment to existing state laws that would deny illegal immigrants the right of access to any social welfare program - schooling, food stamps, health clinics, inoculations, school lunches - except emergency medical care. Even that humanitarian exception had a proviso that health care workers must report suspected illegal aliens to law enforcement authorities (Cowley 31-32). Despite the fact that full enactment of the law has been forestalled by an appeal to the federal courts, in March 1996 the U.S. House of Representatives passed what Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, a supporter, calls a "federal Prop 187" ("Congress Moves to Curb").
The official argument in favor of Prop 187 in California is economic. The state of California asserts that 5 percent of K-12 students are illegal, and their parents non-tax-paying, costing $1.8 billion per year ("Congress Moves to Curb"). In fiscal year 1995, almost 56,000 of California's legal immigrants were from Mexico; documentation supports the estimate of four illegal Mexican immigrants for every legal immigrant ("INS: Sanctions"). Among California's prison population, 38,000 were born in Mexico, and 18,000 are illegal immigrants; at an average cost to the state of $22,000 per prisoner per year, California has been forced to spend $400 million per year to incarcerate illegal aliens, 90 percent of which are from Mexico ("INS: Sanctions). In 1995, 10 percent of the state budget went to pay for housing prisoners, while higher education received only a 9.5 percent allocation ("Prop 187").
Arguing that the U.S. government is negligent in its enforcement of immigrations laws on the U.S.-Mexico border, on March 5, 1996 the state of California renewed a lawsuit against the federal government, asking that it either take custody of the illegal alien...