Los Angeles Times - 09.11.2019

B4 LATIMES.COM

both were committed warri-
ors against illegal immigra-
tion, thanks in big part to
FAIR.
The tall, gravelly voiced
Nelson and squat, bombas-
tic Ezell — former members
of Ronald Reagan’s Califor-
nia gubernatorial Cabinet —
worked closely with FAIR
during their time in Wash-
ington. The two turned il-
legal immigration from an
issue important only in bor-
der states into a national bo-
geyman by taking their baili-
wick to D.C., Sacramento,
and beyond.
Nelson and Ezell’s relent-
less advocacy helped dress
the stage for the bitterly par-
tisan immigration debates
of the past generation.
Their efforts culminated
with Proposition 187, the
landmark 1994 California
ballot measure Nelson and
Ezell wrote that sought to
deny social services and
public education to immi-
grants who were here il-
legally and that voters ap-
proved by a margin of 59% to
41%.
Proposition 187 backfired
in California — over the 25
years that followed, it influ-
enced a generation of Latino
voters to side with Demo-
crats and transformed state
politics to the point that Cal-
ifornia is now a “sanctuary”
state. Nowadays, it’s a para-
ble that Latino activists tell
to warn politicians about
running on a nativist plat-
form lest they invite a back-
lash.
But far less told is how
the battle over Proposition
187, which a federal judge
ultimately ruled unconsti-
tutional in 1997, also taught
anti-immigration groups
how to better fight for their
restrictionist cause.
And no group learned
that lesson better than
FAIR.
By studying Proposition
187’s initial win and eventual
loss in California, it con-
structed a blueprint that
the organization replicated
nationwide: Fund citizens
groups to drum up populist
anger against illegal immi-
gration, help craft legisla-
tion and laws for state and
local government, and in-
spire a pipeline of true be-
lievers to enter politics.
In the process, FAIR
transformed from an inside-
the-Beltway group into a
powerful lobbying force
whose influence reaches all
the way to the White House.
There, alumni including act-
ing U.S. Citizenship and Im-
migration Services Director
Ken Cuccinelli, agency om-
budsman Julie Kirchner,
longtime pollster Kellyanne
Conway and longtime ally
Stephen Miller hold Presi-
dent Trump’s ear on immi-
gration matters. None of this
seemed possible when Nel-
son and Tanton first met.
(The two men would not live
to see any of this unfold; Nel-
son died of a heart attack in
1997 at 63 and Ezell of liver
cancer a year later at 61).
Nelson, who had spent
the previous six years as a
corporate lawyer for Pacific
Bell, admitted he knew

“nothing of immigration,” according to notes Tanton took of their initial en- counter. But Tanton replied that the new deputy commissioner’s ignorance was “a strength rather than a lia- bility.” “You are presiding,” Tan- ton wrote to him afterward, “over one of the most significant determinants of our country’s future!” Tanton, an ardent envi- ronmentalist who initially believed that reducing immigration would save the nation’s natural resources but later saw it as a way to protect the country from a “Latin onslaught,” was just starting to plot out how to turn FAIR into a power- house. Four months after meet- ing Tanton, Nelson was pro- moted to INS commissioner. He invited the FAIR founder to his swearing-in ceremony. FAIR couldn’t have dis- covered a better blank slate upon which to sketch out the potential of the group’s message than Proposition 187 and its authors. Nelson was “a real trouper,” said Dan Stein, FAIR’s president since 1988. And Proposition 187 has “a direct lineage to Trump,” Stein added, “an escalating curve, from 1994 all the way to 2016.” Letters from Tan- ton’s archives show that Tanton and Conner regu-

larly talked with Nelson and shaped not only his world- view, but also the policies of the Immigration and Natu- ralization Service. Nelson addressed FAIR luncheons and met periodi- cally with Conner, who sent him “suggested themes for immigration hearings.” He also directed the group’s spokesperson to work with Nelson’s staff on “ways to im- prove” the language of a proposed immigration bill that turned into an amnesty for over 3 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. As Nelson and FAIR qui- etly worked Congress, Ezell railed about an “invasion” in California. Appointed in 1983, Ezell was a former executive of the Wienerschnitzel hot dog chain whose bluster made him a media favorite. He took politicians on night- time visits to the U.S.-Mexi- co border, asked INS agents to check the residency stat- us of Salvadorans who spoke at Los Angeles City Council meetings and advocated de- porting immigrants who won the California lottery. Of detained immigrants, Ezell told Time magazine, “If you catch ’em, you ought to clean ’em and fry ’em your- self.” Eventually, Ezell — who described himself in the media as a FAIR “contributing member” — asked Conner for help in creating Ameri- cans for Border Control, the country’s first citizens group dedicated to combating illegal immigration. Composed almost exclu- sively of Ezell’s friends, ABC’s actions were mostly limited to cheering on immigration agents during raids in Orange County. But the group pleased Tanton, who funded them through another nonprofit he con-

trolled called U.S. Inc. In 1989, Nelson and Ezell left the INS but continued their crusade in California. The state was about to go through its worst economic crisis since the Great De- pression at a time when changing demographics an- gered many longtimers. It was ripe turf to preach FAIR’s gospel. Ezell joined anti-immigration groups in Orange County even while helping wealthy foreigners apply for so-called investor visas. This loophole in immigration law allowed non-Americans to qualify for residency if they invested $1 million in a business that created at least 10 American jobs. Nelson, who became a lobbyist for FAIR, frequently held news conferences at the Capitol in Sacramento aser- ing that the state had an illegal immigration problem, and urging lawmakers to act. “We’ve declared war on drugs. We’ve declared war on drunken driving,” Nelson once intoned. “How about on illegal immigration?” By 1993, Nelson and Ezell’s efforts had paid off. During the 1993-94 legis- lative session, Assembly members and state senators introduced 83 bills against illegal immigration. FAIR- backed bills to deny government jobs and driver’s li- censes to immigrants in the U.S. illegally, ban cities from declaring themselves sanc- tuaries and expedite depor- tation of prisoners passed. “Our message is finally getting through,” Nelson told The Times in November

“It’s our turn at
bat.”
By then, he had a new
project to work on: Pro-
position 187, which Stein
described as the “first
major citizen-based initia-

tive” against illegal immigration — but said that FAIR had no role in creating it. Ezell and Nelson publicly distanced themselves from FAIR once news emerged of their planned initiative. Nel- son left his lobbyist gig; Ezell created yet another grass- roots group, Americans Against Illegal Immigration, which helped to mobilize on- the-ground volunteers for Proposition 187. The proposition’s opponents, late in the campaign, tried to paint the initiative as hate legislation bank- rolled by FAIR. But all they could find was a $100 dona- tion by Tanton and radio ads that attacked proposition opponents as “special inter- ests” who wanted “an open- ended commitment to pay for services that, like a mag- net, attract a never-ending flow of illegal immigrants to our state” Stein, FAIR’s president then and now, acknowl- edged that his group helped with “a few logistical things along the way” in the Pro- position 187 campaign, including $300,000 spent on ads, and media appearances to spread the message. Proposition 187 was a “watershed moment in terms of transforming America’s immigration moment into a national grass- roots effort,” Stein said. To credit FAIR for it and not the “folks on the ground ... wouldn’t be fair or accurate.” Tanton watched Prop- osition 187 with interest. In a fall 1994 editorial for his journal, “The Social Con- tract Press,” he predicted that if the proposition failed at the ballot box, any joy felt by opponents would “shortly fade when they learn that the defeat has only hardened [supporters],

stiffened its resolve, and broadened its objectives to include legal immigration.” He visited pro-Propo- sition 187 volunteers in Sher- man Oaks in early 1995 to of- fer his congratulations, tried to arrange meetings be- tween the initiative’s crea- tors and other anti-immigration activists across the U.S., and asked a trust tied to Cordelia Scaife May, a reclusive Pittsburgh philan- thropist and major FAIR funder, for $25,000 so he could pay some of the ex- penses of two volunteers, to “keep them encouraged and working for our cause,” according to letters at his University of Michigan archives. Through U.S. Inc., Tan- ton supported American Pa- trol and the California Coali- tion for Immigration Re- form, two influential South- ern California groups whose apocalyptic theories that illegal immigration was an effort by Mexico to retake the American Southwest now passes as truth for much of the nation’s anti-immigration movement. Tanton also used Pro- position 187 to ask donors for more money to fund similar measures across the country. In a letter to Lawrence Kates, a major Los Angeles landlord who had donated a significant amount of money to FAIR in its early days, Tanton proposed the two “keep the heat on the issue” and work together against “the decline of European- American majority and the resultant cultural conse- quences.” “You and I owe it to our kids, to our culture, and to ourselves to team up on this,” Tanton wrote. His pleas worked: Groups tied to Scaife May would go on to donate $103.9 million to Tanton’s or- ganizations from 2003 to 2017 alone. With that windfall, FAIR and its legal arm, the Immi- gration Reform Law Insti- tute, pushed for anti-immigration measures from Ha- zleton, Pa., to Farmer’s Branch, Texas, to Arizona and beyond. Keeping Pro- position 187’s ultimate defeat in mind, Stein said the group made sure such ordi- nances “were drafted with experienced counsel.” Many of them have since been declared unconstitu- tional. But that hasn’t de- terred FAIR, which filed an amicus brief last year in a federal lawsuit by the Trump administration tar- geting California’s sanctuary state policies. “What we learned from 187 is that we need to be there at the beginning” on the legal and grass-roots end, Stein said. He remem- bered how when FAIR first learned about the proposition, the board debated whether they should “stay out of it, or get involved.” “But I said that when your troops are out there in the field of battle, you can’t just stay there and watch,” Stein said. “You’ve got to get involved.”

Prop. 187 battle shaped immigration opponents’ strategy

STUDENTS ARE bused back to school after walking out against Proposition 187 in 1994. The initiative was overturned, but it helped turn the Federation for American Immigration Reform into a potent lobbying force.

Scott MarkowitzLos Angeles Times

[Immigration,from B1]

‘Our message is

finally getting

through. It’s our

turn at bat.’

— Alan C. Nelson, former deputy commissioner for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, in 1993

A swarm of weak earthquakes has been rattling Ventura for at least two days, including a magnitude 3. temblor that hit before dawn Friday. More than 20 earthquakes of magnitude 2 or greater have been detected in Ventura, a historic city whose downtown is built around Mission San Buena- ventura, dedicated in 1782. The Ventura Fire Depart- ment said no damage was reported. While the epicenter of the magnitude 3.6 quake was in the downtown area, only light shaking — too weak to cause any damage — was reported by seismic sen- sors in the area, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The earthquake swarm began shortly after mid- night Thursday. Seismolo- gist Lucy Jones said on Twit- ter that earthquake swarms have occurred in Ventura before, in 1984 and 2015. Neither were followed up by a devastating earthquake. The recent earthquake swarm is probably on an un- mapped fault oriented in a northwest-southeast direction, Jones said. The existence of a swarm of weak earthquakes does not dramatically increase the risk of a damaging earthquake in the Ventura area in

the next few hours or days, according to Jones. Magni- tude 3 earthquakes in Cali- fornia are quite common; the fact that there have been at least five of them since Thursday morning, statisti- cally speaking, does not dramatically raise the risk of a damaging quake in this area soon. “There isn’t something special about being a swarm,” Jones said. “To- day’s earthquake does not make the risk you’re facing a lot more worse than you already have.” Ventura already has one of the higher risks of seeing damaging shaking among cities in Southern California. Generally speaking, Ventura and the northern San Fer- nando Valley are expected to see very strong shaking three to four times every century — a type of shaking that can damage older homes and was felt broadly in the Valley and northern Los Angeles Basin in the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake in 1994, Jones said. By contrast, the Los An- geles Basin is expected to see very strong shaking per- haps two to three times per century, Jones said, while Orange County might see the same intensity of shaking once or twice per century. “Very strong” shaking is

defined as level 7 on the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale, and can cause consid- erable damage in poorly built structures, cause old brick chimneys to topple and unbraced brick walls at the top of old buildings to crash onto sidewalks and awnings. Other major earthquakes near the Ventura County area in the last 100 years include the magnitude 6.8 Santa Barbara earthquake of 1925, which destroyed the business dis- trict of Santa Barbara and killed 13. The death toll would have been far greater had the quake hit during business hours. In 1978, a magnitude 5. earthquake hit south of Santa Barbara, causing at least 65 injuries and more than $7 million in damage. Parts of Ventura County were hit hard in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, including Fillmore, which saw homes damaged. Ventura would be particularly vulnerable in a major earthquake. The city has long had a much weaker law than Los Angeles in address- ing old brick buildings that can collapse when shaken; Ventura has only mandated that brick buildings be retro- fitted above the roof line, a minimal requirement that puts the rest of the structure at risk of collapse.

City officials have said they’d like to establish a more comprehensive inven- tory of seismically vulnerable buildings and consider options that could require retrofit of brick and other buildings at risk of collapse. But progress stalled after the devastating 2017 Thom- as fire, one of California’s most destructive in the modern record. The Ventura fault runs right through the city’s downtown, just a block north of Main Street, in an east-west direction. Research in recent years shows that the Ventura fault is extremely dangerous, ca- pable of joining with other faults to produce an earthquake as large as magnitude 8 as well as severe tsunamis. Such a big earthquake on the fault is estimated to oc- cur every 400 to 2,400 years, and could create a tsunami that would affect the coast- line of Santa Barbara, Car- pinteria and down through the Santa Monica area and points south. A worst-case scenario — not particularly likely in our lifetime, but plausible — would mean a magnitude 7. to 8.1 earthquake ripping from Ventura underneath the San Fernando Valley, Al- tadena, Azusa and east through to Rancho Cuca- monga in San Bernardino County.

Swarm of weak quakes hits Ventura

By Rong-Gong Lin II

A Huntington Beach woman went to great lengths to make herself look like a police officer, including wearing a tactical vest, driving a car with a light bar and carrying a loaded gun, according to the Costa Mesa Police Department. Michelle Brianna Hughes, 30, was stopped near Harbor Boulevard and Merrimac Way in Costa Mesa on Nov. 1 during a rou- tine traffic stop. Police said she identified herself as a deputy with the Orange County Sheriff ’s Depart- ment. Her Chevrolet Impala was equipped exempt Cali- fornia license plates, the kind found on law enforcement vehicles, as well as police lights, but officers quickly determined Hughes was not employed with any law enforcement agency, said Costa Mesa police spokeswoman Roxi Fyad. When Hughes was

stopped, she was wearing a tactical vest with the word “police” in large yellow letters and carrying several weapons, including a taser and an unregistered loaded handgun, Fyad said. She also wore a utility belt that carried handcuffs, a fake law enforcement badge and a high-capacity magazine for a gun. In her car, police found uniforms from law enforcement agencies and addi- tional government-exempt license plates, authorities said. Hughes was arrested on suspicion of carrying an unregistered loaded firearm, being in possession of a high- capacity magazine and impersonating an officer. She was later released after post- ing $41,000 bond, police said. Detectives are now look- ing for members of the public who may have been stopped by Hughes while she was impersonating an officer. Anyone with infor- mation is asked to contact Costa Mesa detectives at (714) 754-5097.

A tactical vest,

a badge, a gun

— and jail time

By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde

Los Angeles Times - 09.11.2019

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