Forced to Pay for Illegal Alien Benefits

I got to hear about Arizona Proposition 200 today, haven't heard about it via the regular media, ABC, CBS, NBC, or CNN. I heard about it on a talk radio show while I was on my way to a job. I had to wait to do my research until I got home. Here is what I found in a short amount of time. This should make your blood boil a little more.

“The initiative requires state and local employees to verify the immigration status of people applying for public benefits and report undocumented immigrants or face possible criminal prosecution.Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard issued an opinion that narrowly defined "public benefits" to mean welfare. For example, the Arizona Department of Economic Security administers five programs that are affected by Proposition 200, state officials said. They include General Assistance, Sight Conservation, Neighbors Helping Neighbors, Utility Repair, Replacement and Deposit and the Supplemental Payment Program.”, quoting directly from an article written by Susan Carroll and Yvonne Wingett in the The Arizona Republic.

“Attorneys for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the legal advocacy group that sued to stop the government from enforcing the initiative, plan to appeal the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco today or Monday. But state officials vowed that the law will go into effect and said workers will be equipped to deal with the new reporting requirements.”

After visiting MALDEF’s website I found that they were instrumental in helping to keep California on its way to bankruptcy. “One of MALDEF's greatest successes was the final settlement reached in the case Gregorio T. v. Wilson. Under the settlement, Governor Gray Davis and the state of California officially agreed to dismiss their appeal of the district court's decision, striking down virtually every section of California's Proposition 187, which, when implemented, would have denied education, health care and social services to the state's undocumented immigrants. MALDEF is pleased in this victory of basic human and civil rights.”


Proposition 187 was subsequently enjoined from enforcement on November 27, 1995, by Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer of the Federal District Court of California. A second 1997 ruling by Judge Pfaelzer also voided Proposition 187, this time on the basis of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (the Welfare Reform Act of 1996), which overhauled federal welfare benefits, denying them to illegal immigrants. Can you say, “Activist Judges will destroy America long before any terrorist organization will.”?

The case was appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and and was expected eventually to reach the Supreme Court, which was expected to follow Plyler v. Dow, a 1982 case which ruled that illegal immigrants were entitled to state-funded education and other social services. Repeat once more, “Activist Judges will destroy America long before any terrorist organization will.”

If you live in Arizona I would not file the victory away as a permanent one; the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has jurisdiction over Arizona too.

I have to ask the logical question, “Why isn’t there some kind of National Proposition 200 or a National Proposition 187 effort in Washington D.C.? I have no issue with the mission statement, “MALDEF is a national non-profit organization whose mission is to protect and promote the civil rights of the more than 40 million Latinos living in the United States.”; except, and this is a major exception, they have perverted the mission to include Illegal Aliens as if they had the same rights as legal citizens. This is not an anti-Hispanic issue at all; it has to do with “legal and illegal”. They would have us to believe that forced values of the Socialist Left are exactly the same as those voted upon by legal citizen’s voter rights. Nyet and Nada to that amigos, or as Vice President Dick Chaney once said, “Go…” From a purely selfish standpoint, I’d like to see a face to face confrontation between MALDEF and the Vice President to help warm up relations with our southern friends.