UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
7A
Friday, November 11, 1994
Proposition 187 hurting business along the U.S.-Mexican border
The Associated Press
TIUANA Mexico — Her gray hair shining in the light of a butane lamp, Esperanza Medina hugs her two grandchildren as she sells food to a handful of men waiting by a fire to climb a steel fence.
Under her green tent, business is down.
It has to do with California's passage of Proposition 187, which cuts benefits to illegal immigrants, as well as with the militarization of the border.
"There is such injustice for poor Mexicans who want to find work in the United States," she said. "It looks like they don't want us."
Her sentiments are echoed throughout this nation of 80 million following Tuesday's vote approving the measure, which could cut welfare benefits to illegal immigrants, including schooling and health care.
Medina soda instant soup, cigarettes, soft drinks and even plastic bags — to be worn as boots — to Mexicans who flock to the fence and cross into California. It is a long, perilous journey that is becoming harder every day.
Medina isn't making much money these days. She used to sell 50 ham sandwiches a night. Now she can't
even sell 10.
"Before, I took people across the border every night," said "Muffler, a so-called coyote, or smuggler, who charges up to $200 a person for a ride to Los Angeles.
Although illegal immigrants still can be seen climbing cliffs and running across canals, canyons and ravines, their numbers are distinctly down.
The Border Patrol says that more than 1 million were apprehended in fiscal 1983, compared with about 861,000 in fiscal 1994, which ended in September.
New citizens worry about Prop.187
"Muffler," who says his real name is Juan Coronado, has been a coyote for five years. Now he's helping build a Chinese restaurant with a friend. He's a little bored.
"I'll just wait for things to calm down and go back to my old business," he said. "I know how to do it. It's better than stealing."
Not many here believe Mexicans will stop going to the United States just because of Proposition 187. Even though they often work for less than the U.S. minimum wage, they still make more money than they would at home. Common jobs for the illegal immigrants are picking fruit, working in construction or restaurants, moving lawns or cleaning houses.
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — They couldn't vote the day Proposition 187 passed. Two days later, they became American citizens.
For 7,000 immigrants who were sworn in as U.S. citizens during a ceremony yesterday, joy was tempered by sadness over the passage of a California measure that would deny schooling, welfare and most health care to illegal aliens.
judge
"I'm feeling bad because it's not right," said 28-year-old Carlos Urruña, who fled civil war in El Salvador six years ago and took his place in the crowd to recite the citizenship oath before a federal
Urritua said he had entered the United States legally but worried about a pregnant relative who didn't have permission. And he worries about illegal aliens he has never met.
"It's harder living in this country without papers." Urttia said.
Ernesto Bautista said he can do more than just complain now that he is a citizen: "At least now I can vote."
Voters in Oregon allow legalization of assisted suicide
Francisco Ortiz, 42, another in the group at the Los Angeles Convention Center, was born in Mexico and sees hope in this country despite overwhelming support for Proposition 187.
PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon has become the only place in the nation that lets doctors hasten death for the terminal ill.
The Associated Press
Measure 16 on Tuesday's ballot passed 52 percent to 48 percent in Oregon. Not all the absentee ballots were counted, but both sides said that they do not expect the margin to change when the tally is completed today.
Measure 16 will allow a patient with six months to live to ask a doctor to prescribe a lethal dose of drugs to end unbearable suffering. At least two doctors must first agree that the patient's condition is terminal.
The patient must request the drugs at least twice, then a third time in writing.
It's up to the patient to take the final steen and administer the drugs.
Many Oregon doctors welcomed the prospect of legalizing suicide with a physician's help. They said that it has long been a common practice with the terminally ill.
For Tim Shuck of Portland, the issue comes down to having a choice when suffering becomes unbearable.
"The biggest gift they could give me is to let me go," said Shuck, a 45-year-old AIDS patient whose doctor told him in April the virus is invading his brain. "If this measure passes, this will simply relieve my family of the burden of having to make a joint decision about me when it's time."
Similar measures were defeated in Washington in 1991 and California in 1992, but those initiatives differed significantly by allowing a doctor to administer the drugs.
The national debate over euthanasia intensified 4 1/2 years ago when Janet Adkins, a victim of Alzheimer's disease, killed herself with the help of Jack Kevorkian.
"The legalization of any form of assisted suicide will have tremendous consequences that will reverberate through American society," said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia.
A touch of Irish in downtown Lawrence
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