Immigration Hardliners Going After Kids' in California

Anti-immigration activists who patrol the border with guns and lobby for putative measures targeting the undocumented are bad for a variety of reasons, but it’s quite another and more sinister thing to go after children.

That’s exactly what the “Minutemen” and their ilk are trying to do in California with a ballot proposal that would end public benefits and welfare for children with undocumented parents, even though they are citizens and were born in the United States. Some supporters of the plan have referred to the children as “anchor babies.”

Despite the fact that such a measure would likely be unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment, anti-immigration zealots like Ted Hilton of San Diego are spearheading the effort to collect enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot in 2010.

Hilton actually registered the political committee, called Taxpayer Revolution, for the campaign in January, records with the California Secretary of State’s office show. And according to the most recent quarterly disclosure reports filed in April the campaign has already spent nearly $90,000, with around $5,000 left over. But what exactly they’re spent it on is unknown.

As far as one can see, the vast majority of expenditures are a mystery. About $46,000 went to pay off a slew of credit card companies for “office expenses,” and $37,000 has gone to Hilton and his staff. In a three month period alone, Hilton paid himself $21,000. This rest went to his treasurer Hisako Yoshida and family member Alisa Hilton. Good work if you can get it.

Despite the odd financing, it can be confirmed that the Taxpayer Revolution has spent $6,500 for campaign literature costs and fees needed to create the political committee.

At the moment Hilton and his posse will need to collect 488,000 petition signatures to get the vote on the ballot, and Hilton has boasted to The Los Angeles Times that his group has raised a total of $350,000.

There is a press conference planned for today in Los Angeles featuring Hilton, Republican congressional candidate Tony Dolz and Barbara Coe, chair of the anti-immigration group California Coalition for Immigration Reform.