California Voters Would Reject Initiative to Allow Aliens to Work Legally

By Joe Guzzardi
December 6, 2011

California Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes’ announcement that his proposed initiative which would allow nearly a million illegal aliens to work lawfully in California without fear of deportation triggered a storm of outrage. Citizens already reeling from high unemployment, overcrowding and overpopulation, much of it attributable to over-immigration, threw up their hands in disgust.

Fuentes filed his California Opportunity and Prosperity Act with the state’s attorney general’s office last Friday and hired former California Republican Party official Mike Madrid to help the fund raising and signature collection efforts. Fuentes, who calls his measure “a moderate, common-sense approach” to illegal immigration, will need 504,760 valid signatures to qualify his initiative for a general election ballot.

According to the initiative’s terms, to qualify, an alien would have to have lived in California since January 2008, have no criminal record, speak English or be in the process of learning the language. Supporters claim, without substantiation, that the measure would generate up to $325 million in new tax revenues. Since aliens should already pay taxes with their Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, this argument is not persuasive.

Fuentes’ measure defiantly violates federal law, ignores the plight of millions of unemployed legal Californians, including Hispanics, and is a blatant exercise in self-promotion.

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, one of Fuentes harshest critics wondered: “There’s a process for coming into the country. Why don’t you respect that?” Donnelly is involved in a similar initiative process to end A.B. 131, the California Dream Act that Governor Jerry Brown signed in October which would qualify aliens for Cal Grants, formerly awarded to citizen children only.

Some sub-plots may be at play. There’s a strong chance that Fuentes looked east toward Washington D.C. where he saw President Obama’s administration pardoning illegal aliens via a backdoor amnesty. In a less publicized but equally telling action, the Department of Justice announced that it would not interfere with Utah’s guest worker amnesties signed into law last spring. Fuentes may have correctly concluded that he could expect smooth sailing—that is, no interference from the Obama administration. And Fuentes knew going in that he could count on Brown and Attorney General Kamala J. Harris to stay out of his way.

Although it’s early in the process, Fuentes will have no trouble gathering 504,760 signatures to qualify for the ballot. California has plenty of registered open-border proponent voters who support the philosophy that everyone regardless of immigration status should be able to work. Once on the ballot, however, the California Opportunity and Prosperity Act would represent the greatest chance ever for immigration patriots to score a major victory. Assemblyman Donnelly predicted that the initiative would not have a “snow ball’s chance in hell,” an assessment with which I wholeheartedly agree.

Even though immigration policy has had a dramatic effect on Americans’ lives, none of the major federal bills have ever been put before voters. Congress passed the two which irreversibly changed America, the 1965 Immigration Act and the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, in their chambers and without voter approval.

Given the chance, California voters would overwhelming reject Fuentes’ act, thus sending a message to Congress that amnesty in any form is so unpopular with the mainstream that it cannot even pass in a majority-minority state dominated by the Hispanic Caucus and governed by the Democratic extreme left wing.

Joe Guzzardi has written editorial columns, mostly about immigration and related social issues, since 1986. He is a Senior Writing Fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) and his columns are syndicated in various U.S. newspapers and websites. Contact him at [email protected].