Los Angeles Times (California)
By Melanie Mason
August 11, 2015
It
started with in-state tuition. Then came driver's licenses, new rules
designed to limit deportations and state-funded healthcare for children.
And on Monday, in a gesture
heavy with symbolism, came a new law to erase the word "alien" from
California's labor code.
Together,
these piecemeal measures have taken on a significance greater than
their individual parts — a fundamental shift in the relationship between
California and its
residents who live in the country illegally. The various benefits,
rights and protections add up to something experts liken to a kind of
California citizenship.
The
changes have occurred with relatively little political rancor, which is
all the more remarkable given the heated national debate about illegal
immigration that has
been inflamed by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
"We've
passed the Rubicon here," said Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist.
"This is not an academic debate on the U.S. Senate floor about legal and
illegal and how high
you want to build the wall.... [The state] doesn't have the luxury of
being ideological.... The undocumented are not going anywhere."
Democratic
lawmakers and immigration activists, with diminishing opposition from
the GOP, continue to seek new laws and protections. These measures
include cracking down
on employers withholding pay from low-wage workers and expanding
state-subsidized healthcare to adult immigrants without papers.
These
new initiatives face obstacles, but backers say such hurdles center on
the hefty price tags of the programs, not political fallout from the
immigration debate.
California
officials have been spurred into action in part by the lack of action
in Washington to overhaul the nation's immigration system. The stall in
Congress has motivated
advocates to push for changes in state laws. But they acknowledge that
their victories are limited without national reform.
"The
reality is, despite the bills that we've done, there are up to 3
million undocumented immigrants that still live in the shadows," said
Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Watsonville),
chairman of the Latino Legislative Caucus. "Their legal status as
immigrants does not change — only Congress can do that."
Karthick
Ramakrishnan, a public policy professor at UC Riverside, calls what's
emerging "the California package": an array of policies that touch on
nearly every aspect
of immigrant life, from healthcare to higher education to protection
from federal immigration enforcement.
Other
states have adopted components of the package; Connecticut, for
example, offers in-state tuition and driver's licenses, and passed
legislation known as the Trust
Act to help limit deportations before California did.
But Ramakrishnan said California is unique in how comprehensive its offerings are.
Most
of these laws were passed after 2000, and became especially plentiful
after 2012, when President Obama took executive action that shielded
from deportation people
who were brought to the country illegally.
California
was one of the first states to authorize driver's licenses for those
affected by Obama's order; two years later, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a
law enabling all
immigrants in the U.S. illegally to seek licenses. The same year, the
state expanded in-state tuition for more students in the country
illegally and allowed people without legal status to obtain law and
other professional licenses.
There
have been symbolic wins too, such as a law last year to repeal vestiges
of Proposition 187. The initiative, which overwhelmingly passed in
1994, denied immigrants
in the country illegally access to public services; it had been mostly
overturned by the courts. And on Monday, Brown signed a measure striking
the word "alien" — seen as derogatory to those not born in the U.S. —
from the state's labor laws.
Still,
advocates at times have fallen short. They made the expansion of
healthcare coverage a signature issue in recent years, but the estimated
price tag of such proposals
runs in the hundreds of millions of dollars. So far, they've notched a
narrower victory — $40 million in the most recent state budget to
provide Medi-Cal coverage to children younger than 19 regardless of
legal status.
Brown
also vetoed a measure in 2013 that would have allowed legal immigrant
residents to serve on juries, saying in his veto message that "jury
service, like voting, is
quintessentially a prerogative and responsibility of citizenship."
A handful of Democrats — mostly from swing or politically conservative districts — had also opposed that measure.
Brown has appointed a number of noncitizens in the country legally to state agencies and departments, according to his office.
Other
policies have run into criticism. The death last month of Kathryn
Steinle, who authorities say was shot by a Mexican national who had
previously been deported several
times, thrust San Francisco's "sanctuary city" policy into the national
political debate. The policy limits local law enforcement's cooperation
with U.S. immigration officials.
San
Francisco adopted sanctuary city status in 1989, and other major cities
in California, including Los Angeles and San Diego, have followed suit.
Under a statewide law
passed in 2013, local law enforcement officials are prohibited from
detaining immigrants for longer than necessary on minor offenses so that
they can be turned over to federal officials for possible deportation.
Steinle's
killing prompted swift criticism of the city's more permissive policy
from GOP presidential candidates and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a
Democrat from San Francisco.
Steinle's parents testified in an emotional hearing on Capitol Hill and
Republican lawmakers in Congress have pushed several measures to clamp
down on sanctuary cities.
In
California, however, the backlash has been notably more muted. One
Republican state senator, Jeff Stone of Temecula, has said he intends to
introduce a bill that would
require cities and counties to fully cooperate with federal immigration
authorities. But none of his GOP colleagues in Sacramento has so far
chimed in with calls for action.
The
shift in tone is also evident in Republicans' voting records. Some of
the earlier immigration measures —benefits such as in-state tuition and
financial aid for higher
education, for example — were generally opposed by Republicans, as were
measures intended to limit deportations and enforcement.
A
handful of GOP members voted in 2013 in favor of the driver's license
law; several more backed the measure allowing professional licenses the
next year.
This
year, a sizable number of Republicans have voted for a proposal that
would grant work permits to farmworkers living in the country illegally.
GOP state Sen. Andy
Vidak of Hanford authored a resolution calling for federal immigration
reform that included a path to citizenship.
"There
is a growing recognition now that we're a state of rich diversity.
We're a state of immigrants and that's a positive," said Assemblywoman
Kristin Olsen (R-Modesto),
the GOP leader of the Assembly.
Olsen,
who said the national debate around illegal immigration has taken on a
tone that's "too strident, too harsh," said her party is increasingly
open to state action
in the absence of immigration reform at the national level.
Nevertheless,
she said some of California's new laws have gone too far — particularly
those that dip into the state's coffers, like expanding college
financial aid or
healthcare to those who are in the country illegally.
The
shift in the GOP's tone is coming in part because of demographic
realities — Latinos have surpassed whites as the largest ethnic group in
the state, and California's
sizable Asian population also has large numbers of immigrants.
Recent
polls by the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times and the Public Policy
Institute of California have found broad support for a path to citizenship for those in the country
illegally.
Even those who advocate for stricter immigration laws acknowledge their side has won few victories in recent years.
"Citizens
are out of the loop on these immigration bills," said Joe Guzzardi,
spokesman for the group Californians for Population Stability. "I
question whether or not
any of them would have passed on the ballot, especially the ones
dealing with outlays of taxpayer money."
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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