Teachers and health-care workers would turn into snitches, asked to turn in any child suspected of having parents here illegally. Children would be encouraged to tell on their parents. In a year when Republicans have so far stuck together like Gummi Bears, Jack Kemp and William Bennett, both ambitious men unlikely to buck their party, tried appealing to conscience. While acknowledging that illegal immigration must be stopped, they argued that Prop 187 is a nativist measure that appeals to the angry and won't fix the problem. It is poison in a democracy.
Conscience is one thing, winning another.
Two weeks earlier, Huffington didn't even know what Prop 187 was. The illogic of any crackdown is that most studies of Latino immigrants show they have a strong work ethic, tight-knit families and a low use of public services. Despite being underpaid and undereducated, few cross the border to collect welfare. America is partly a land of dreams because it is a country of laws, made with deliberation. Prop 187 was slapped together in a moment of anger by a handful of citizens accountable to no one and taken up by candidates afraid to be seen as soft.