According to a National Academy of Sciences study in 1997, the average immigrant household represented a net fiscal drain on the state of $3,500 a year. If you do the math (not even adjusting for inflation), that would mean that immigrant households cost state and local governments to the tune of $11 billion.
No wonder people voted for Proposition 187, including 31 percent of Hispanics. The GOP wasn't hurt by it. Republicans were getting about 30 percent of the Hispanic vote before Proposition 187, and have been getting about 30 percent since. Their basic political problem with Hispanics is that they are poor, and poor people vote for Democrats.
What is most needed is a serious effort to discourage illegals from coming here in the first place. To that end, Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies suggests a five-point agenda for Schwarzenegger: 1) that illegal immigrants not get in-state tuition rates to go to California public universities; 2) that illegal immigrants shouldn't get driver's licenses; 3) that the state government shouldn't do business with any company that has been caught hiring illegals; 4) that state and local California police should cooperate with the federal immigration service; and 5) that the feds do more to patrol the border and sanction businesses hiring illegals.
This would bring an issue of great concern not just to Californians, but to people across the country, to the fore -- and put Schwarzenegger on the popular side of it. Proposition 187 needn't be a chink. It could be one of his foremost weapons.