The grass-roots activists gathered in a school auditorium in suburban Sherman Oaks to condemn the ongoing "invasion" of illegal immigrants. "Half the time I don't know if I'm even in America anymore," complained one participant.
But he, like many others, sees salvation in the form of a provocative television panelist turned politician. "Pat Buchanan is the only one talking to us," the man said, echoing the views of many at the emotion-charged assembly.
California's March 26 primary election, with a potentially decisive, winner-take-all pool of 165 Republican presidential delegates, is still more than three weeks away. But activists and analysts alike say that immigration, a touchstone theme here since the passage of Proposition 187 two years ago, looms as an important issue.
Already, Buchanan is championing the cause of curbing all immigration, and rival Sen. Bob Dole is being urged to speak out on the issue more forcefully. Candidates Steve Forbes and Lamar Alexander are staking out turf as pro-business moderates on immigration.
"Let's be honest. Illegal immigration, and Mexicans coming across the border, are not big issues in New Hampshire or Iowa, but they are in California," said Allan Hoffenblum, a Los Angeles-based Republican political consultant.
Meanwhile, for much of California's huge immigrant community and their advocates, the prospect of a renewed barrage of photo opportunities featuring GOP candidates talking tough at the border and at schools and clinics bursting with immigrants and their children is a dismaying one.
"I'm afraid immigration is going to be the Willie Horton issue of the California primary," said Peter Schey of the Los Angeles-based Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, referring to the African American convict who committed a rape while on furlough from a Massachusetts prison and was featured in ads against Democratic nominee Michael S. Dukakis during the 1988 presidential campaign.
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One issue sure to reemerge is Proposition 187, approved overwhelmingly by state voters in 1994 and now largely tied up in federal court. It seeks to cut off public education, social services and nonemergency health benefits to illegal immigrants.
The Buchanan campaign--chaired here by state Sen. Richard Mountjoy (R-Arcadia), an initiative co-founder--has attempted to position the commentator as the only major candidate who in 1994 publicly supported the measure.
