A judgment in California, which restored immigrants rights, could be counterproductive in 2025.

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California has the largest population of undocumented immigrants in the country, With approximately 1.8 million people. Over the last three decades, the attitude of Californians has been surprisingly changed in this regard.

Hostility reached its maximum point in the early 1990s, as demonstrated by the approval of Proposal 187 In 1994, with a margin of 3 to 2, the measure would force the police to verify the legal status of the persons with whom it was found and banned access to public services, including education, to which they could not demonstrate their citizenship O legitimate residence.

It was the central part of the Republican Governor Pete Wilson’s second -term campaign, arguing that undocumented people overcome the state budget.

However, support was not limited to Republican voters. Not only many Democrats (then, as now, the largest block of voters) voted in favor of the measure, but the legislature dominated by the Democrats approved the anti -migrant laws, such as the ban on driving licenses.

However, soon the public feeling and the political atmosphere began to change. Untumed immigrants and their defenders achieved a great victory a year after the approval of the proposal 187, when Federal Judge Mariana Pfaler ruled that the measure violate the exclusive power of the federal government To regulate immigration.

“The predominant approval of a proposal 187 by California voters reflects their justified frustration to the federal government’s inability to effectively implement immigration laws,” he wrote at that time. “However, however serious the problem is, the immigration regulation body belongs exclusively to the federal government and state agencies that are not authorized to accept that body. The state has no right to promote its own plan for the regulation of immigration or to design immigration provisions that operate in parallel or intend to supplement the federal immigration laws. “

A few years later when Democrat Gray Davis replaced Wilson, The state abandoned a complaint Against Pfaelzer’s decision. In the coming years, the legislature canceled other laws, such as driving licenses, and did everything possible to treat undocumented immigrants as if they were legal residents, such as Expanding the benefits of medical careS

When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016 and promised to take vigorous measures against illegal immigration, California reacted with legislation to make federal immigration authorities capture and deport the undocumented Californians.

The most important thing was Sb 54A month after Trump won the election. Known as the California Securities Act, it mainly prohibits police in California from collaborating with federal efforts to identify and deport unspecified immigrants.

SB 54 is experiencing a court challenge but Trump is again in the White House by declaring his intention to release the nation from undecided immigrants and E Indicating to California and other states with shrinesS

The United States Ministry of Justice has filed a case to annul the Laws of Illinois Very similar to the SB 54 of California and his argument in the request of Illinois can – with great irony – to transform the federal court’s decision against prop. 187 three decades ago in a hammer to crush the SB 54. If California was illegally returning to the exclusive power of the federal government for immigration in Prop. 187, implies the request, the laws of the sanctuary also interfere with this power.

The 23 -page complaint presented in a Federal Court in Chicago claims that Illinois’ laws “have a purpose and the effect of difficult and deliberately prevent the capacity of federal immigration officers to fulfill their responsibilities in these jurisdictions.”

California employees are aware that Illinois’ request will not be the only challenge for local and state laws aimed at protecting undocumented immigrants.

If the argument for Illinois’ request prevailed, the California situation may return to the original point. A legal principle that defended California immigrants from proposal 187 in 1995 can facilitate their identification and deportation in 2025.

This opinion article was originally published by CalmattersS