“To Reward the Wrong Way Is Not the American Way": Welfare, Immigrants’ Rights, and the Battle over Benefits

This paper, which draws its title from a 1994 campaign ad for California Governor Pete Wilson, focuses on the intersection of immigrants’ rights and welfare policy during the 1990s. With national politics gridlocked, restrictionists turned to statehouses to enact their agenda. In California, anti-immigrant hardliners pushed Proposition 187, a ballot initiative that sought to prohibit unauthorized immigrants from accessing public benefits including health care, education and other social services. While federal courts invalidated many of the Proposition’s provisions, the measure had significant national political and policy implications that have previously been underexplored. This paper shows how within the GOP, conservatives—including the newly elected Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich—used Proposition 187 as a model for proposals in the “Contract with America,” and more broadly harnessed the ballot initiative’s electoral popularity to push the Republican Party toward a restrictionist immigration policy. Within the Clinton White House, concerns about winning California in the 1996 presidential election grew after seeing Proposition 187’s success, giving strength to those pushing the centrist ideas of welfare reform and immigration restriction within the White House. The chapter shows how these political pressures and shifts led to the passage of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, which included provisions that removed millions of authorized immigrants from Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and food stamps as well as other means tested programs. The welfare benefit restriction marked one of the most significant successes of the anti-immigrant movement since the 1970s, and signaled the emergence of a new period of immigration policy in 1990s. This paper explores the confluence of forces that ushered in this new era.