MINORITY AFFAIRS FORUM Overview of contents:

Jesse Laguna's Los Angeles Times op-ed piece on the reasons why repeating polling has shown Latino-Americans to favor reductions in both legal and illegal immigration. Laguna attributes this to the fact that Latinos are the first ones who are hurt by large-scale immigration.

Harry Pachon of the Tomas Rivera Institute in the Claremont Colleges believes that the California governor Pete Wilson is alienating Latinos who could be potential Republicans.

Richard Rothstein, who writes for Dissent and the Spanish-language daily La Opinion, gives an extensive analysis of the causes and effects of illegal immigration. He notes, for example, that improvements in the economies of immigrant-sending countries such as Mexico tend (in the short run) actually increase pressures to emigrate to the U.S.

Sociologist Jorge Bustamente's Stanford University presentation on Mexican undocumented workers.

Demographer B. Meredith Burke looks at the effect of illegal immigration on California fertility rates and the implications of them.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 made it illegal to hire illegal aliens. However, because Congress feared that IRCA might lead to employer discrimination against "foreign-looking" job applicants, it included in IRCA a provision making it illegal (in most cases) for an employer to restrict a job to U.S. citizens, e.g. to bar "green card" holders. The Office of Special Counsel (OCS) was established to investigate cases of possible employer discrimination related to IRCA. The article by Lawrence Siskind, who headed OSC during 1987-1989, discusses OSC's role in ensuring that employers did not restrict jobs only to U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

Another article by Siskind looks at the constitutional issues involving Proposition 187. Siskind argues that the constitutional arguments made in 1982 to guarantee illegal immigrant children public education were weak at the, and inapplicable today. On the other hand, he believes that 187's reporting requirements violate the Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure.

Another article on the constitutionality of Proposition 187, is written by Dan Stein of FAIR.

Jean Tepperman's San Francisco Bay Guardian column profiles Cecelia, an illegal immigrant, and how she projects Proposition 187 will affect her.

A Government Accounting Office report to Congress evaluates recent border efforts to interdict the flow of undocumented entrants to the U.S.

Amy Wu criticizes her fellow minorities who voted for Proposition 187 (San Francisco Chronicle, January 31, 1995).

The General Accounting Office analysis of the cost of illegal immigration.

A critical analysis of Prop. 187 by Dick Walker, Professor and Chair, UC Berkeley Dept. of Geography.