Proposition 187

I was asked to take this survey for some public something policy administration class by my sister's friend.

Here's how it went down on AIM:

me: wat u gonna do with this info
friend: i have to discuss my chosen proposition, explain its policy formulation and evaluation process, discuss the survey results, provide pie chart
me: soo u're collectin data from ppl and see wat they think
me: its not a real survey!! its helpin u to do ur hw!!
me: cheater!!

So, as a nice person that I am, I participated. Mind you, it is quite long. Read with caution.

What is Proposition 187?
California Proposition 187 was a 1994 ballot initiative designed to deny illegal immigrants social services, health care, and public education.

Proposition 187 included several additions to the law, falling into two categories:
- All law enforcement agents who suspect that a person who has been arrested is in violation of immigration laws must investigate the detainee's immigration status, and if they find evidence of illegality they must report it to the attorney general of California, and to the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
- No one may receive public benefits until they have proven their legal right to reside in the country. If anyone applies for benefits and is suspected by government agents of being illegal, those agents must report in writing to the enforcement authorities. Emergency medical care is exempted as required by federal law but all other medical benefits have the same test as above. Primary and secondary education is explicitly included.

Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Asian/Pacific Islander
Do you support the proposition? Yes and No
Please explain:

We live in a capitalistic country—we fend for ourselves and ourselves only. If anyone gets in our way, we’ll stomp them like a bug. If someone bothers us, we’ll gently wave our hands as if we’re shoo-ing away a pesky fly. Why? Simply because we have better things to do than to bother with such ‘nuisances.’

Why should it be any different for an illegal immigrant? What makes them so special that we pay attention to them? As a capitalist, who cares. Illegal immigrants took the courage, money and made ridiculous sacrifices to join our rat race. Why not let them join us?

Most of our ‘citizen’ population can barely keep up with this rat race. In fact, at least 1/3 of our population are laggers and will only walk, never run or even jog—just like when we had PE in middle school; you know who I’m talking about.

Isn’t becoming something from nothing part of the American culture? What good sense does it make to let our ‘privileged’ citizens remain laggers and stomp illegals who are willing to succeed? How will this help our economy? It doesn’t, it only hinders it. Face it, we’re adding more laggers to the race, not diminishing it. Maybe we should create a human bartering system with other countries; except who would be willing to take our laggers? No country would. If I were President of a country, I would 187 them before they set foot in my land.

Sure, take away the health benefits and other ‘citizen’ privileges, but we should not and cannot be the ones to determine if they should receive an education. The basic fundamental of an education is to increase our knowledge and wisdom—removing them from our public school education will not defeat this. In fact, it may do the exact opposite.

Alas, our taxes. We pay taxes and by no means should an illegal reap our possible benefits. I digress. As a citizen, we merely indirectly support these programs. It is up to the government to decide on how our hard earned dollars are spent—this is our unsaid contract for living here. We are given the illusion that we have control.

Also, I question our logic: It’s okay to have our government officials spend excessive amount of our taxes on dinners, conferences, lodging, drug smuggling (i.e. FBI and Colombia), have slow and inefficient courtroom/DMV employees, but when an illegal tries to obtain an education (either to learn or to stay out of trouble) that’s a big no-no? Wouldn’t you prefer illegals to be safely tucked away at school than to have them roaming around the streets doing God knows what?

Even if this proposition is approved, the number of illegal immigrants will never cease. Middle runners of the rat race are too busy to pay close attention and the top runners are too successful to even care. All that is left are the laggers—and we know what big gossips they were back in day.

Comment: Now I wonder if she used my real data to include in her presentation :p