--------------------------------------------Subject: A WIN!!!- --------------------------------------------
Prop 187 Memorial Passes NM Legis.
Joint Memorial Recognizing the contribution of America's immigrants and restating New Mexico's commitment to cultural diversity.
WHEREAS, the adoption of proposition 187 in California, which denies public education, social services and public health services to undocumented workers and residents, has raised domestic ethnic tensions and caused divisiveness rather than addressing real solutions to the problem of illegal immigration; and
WHEREAS, with the public debate over similar "Prop. 187" measures now being discussed in other southwest border states, including New Mexico, policymakers and other elected officials must be vigilant to lead the public debate about undocumented workers and immigrants so as to encourage cultural pluralism and protect fundamental human rights and constitutional rights to education, health care and social services; and
WHEREAS, with the United States being a nation of immigrants, including the original Pilgrims, the waves of European immigration in the 1840s, from 1900 to 1910 and the immigration of the 1980s, it is vitally important that all Americans remember their immigrant heritage and principles of freedom and opportunity symbolized by the Statue of Liberty; and
WHEREAS, with legal immigration having reached nine and one-half million between 1981 and 1990, New Mexicans should remember that immigrants arriving in the 1980s represented only three and one-half percent of the total United States population and in New Mexico that same 1980s legal immigration accounted for only thirty-one thousand citizens or two percent of our 1990 population of one million five hundred thousand; and
WHEREAS, with job growth in New Mexico now the second fastest in the nation and unemployment at five and one-half percent policymakers should note that the newcomers of the 1980s and 1990s from Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean fill needs for professional services as well as entrepreneurs, day laborers and child care providers, with recent studies showing eleven million immigrants nationwide, mostly legal, producing three hundred billion dollars per year in goods and services and paying ninety billion dollars in taxes; and
WHEREAS, recognizing that the Refugee Act of 1980 requires states to provide cash and medical assistance to legal immigrants, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 allows access to public assistance and health and educational services to legalized immigrants and the 1982 United States supreme court case of Plyler v. Doe extends public education benefits to undocumented residents, it is the responsibility of state government to integrate all immigrants into the mainstream of New Mexico society rather than to adopt policies like those embodied in Proposition 187;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that it restate its commitment to supporting laws and policies that promote cultural diversity and human and constitutional rights for all New Mexicans, including the right to public education, public healthservices and essential social services; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that is recognize that newcomers to New Mexico are assets, that our cultural diversity is to be celebrated and that state and local governments have a responsibility to design and implement policies that foster that diversity; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to the governor, the office of cultural affairs, the United States immigration and naturalization service, the president of the United States, the New Mexico congressional delegation and the chairmen of the judiciary committees of the United States senate and house of representatives.