Armed with a favorable federal court ruling, the administration of Gov. Pete Wilson is proceeding with wide-ranging plans to ban illegal immigrants from receiving prenatal care benefits and from participating in dozens of other aid programs financed exclusively with state money.
"Any state-funded program identified under our review will be terminated for illegal immigrants," said Sean Walsh, a spokesman for Wilson, who has ordered all agencies to identify programs affected by the federal welfare law's new bans on aid for the undocumented.
The list of efforts potentially targeted is broad, from cancer-screening and foster care to post-secondary education to state licenses and contracts--all now open to otherwise eligible state residents, regardless of immigration status.
But, with the exception of pregnancy aid and a separate subsidy for illegal immigrants in nursing homes, it is unclear to what extent illegal immigrants make use of state aid programs.
"We just haven't tracked it in the past," said Corinne Chee, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Social Services.
Beyond a Dec. 1 cutoff for prenatal care, no precise timetable has yet emerged to halt benefits. "We are not setting artificial deadlines, but we are fairly close to concluding our review," Walsh said.
Court papers filed in the federal court case against Proposition 187 identify a host of wholly state-funded programs that could henceforth be banned to illegal immigrants, including efforts providing early breast-cancer detection; child-abuse prevention; foster care; abortion and family planning services, and assistance for the deaf and disabled.
The federal welfare overhaul, signed into law by President Clinton in August, mandates that state and local governments terminate most aid to illegal immigrants, unless states pass new laws specifically authorizing the assistance. Illegal immigrants were already excluded from most federal benefit programs.
California has moved more swiftly than any state to impose the welfare law's new bans on locally funded aid for illegal immigrants. A few local governments, including those in San Francisco and New York, have announced their intention to defy Washington and continue providing aid to illegal immigrants.
On Friday, the Wilson administration issued "emergency" regulations that would end state-subsidized prenatal care to illegal immigrants by next month. The state has provided the assistance since 1988.
