Immigration: The Tinderbox Issue

A shrill voice, raised in song, pierced the angry chatter inside the Costa Mesa City Council chambers. All eyes turned to a dark-haired woman wearing a white scarf. Fist raised, eyes scrunched, she belted out a warbling but spirited version of "We Shall Overcome." Nearby stood Jim Gilchrist, co-founder of the anti-immigration Minuteman Project, and several of Gilchrist's followers. They quickly began sing-shouting "America the Beautiful," trying to drown out the civil rights-era protest spiritual.

This impromptu singing duel capped the pandemonium that erupted during a Jan. 3 Costa Mesa City Council meeting after a young Hispanic man who was testifying against Costa Mesa's ongoing anti-immigrant crackdown asked the crowd to stand in opposition to the mayor's policies. The mayor ordered his microphone shut off, and when he refused to leave the podium he was swarmed by police officers and strong-armed out the door.

If Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor and his supporters have their way, thousands of undocumented Hispanic immigrants will be similarly run out of Costa Mesa. Last December, the City Council narrowly passed a resolution pushed by Mansoor calling for the city's police officers to be trained and empowered to arrest illegal aliens for violating federal immigration law. Costa Mesa was the first city in the country to pass such a measure.

Additionally, Mansoor and his allies on the City Council, Gary Monahan and Eric Bever, have disbanded the city's human rights committee, shut down the city's day laborer center, and sliced funding for charities that serve Hispanics. There has also been talk of closing the Latino swap meet and even banning pick-up games of soccer from public parks.

More than 40% of Costa Mesa's 110,000 residents are Hispanic, many of them undocumented workers from Mexico. But while the leaders of some nearby cities have declared their communities "sanctuary cities," Mansoor's administration has taken the exact opposite stance with a hard-line campaign to roll up the welcome mat.

That campaign has transformed Costa Mesa into a closely watched and especially volatile tinderbox within the raging national debate over immigration. The success or failure of Mansoor's policies could set the tone for how other cities around the country deal with what is quickly emerging as one of the most divisive political issues in the United States. Outside activists from both sides of the debate have flocked to Costa Mesa and declared the city a critical battleground.

"Costa Mesa is at the epicenter of the immigration debate and a microcosm of what is taking place across the United States," says Humberto Caspa, a professor at the University of California, Long Beach. Of the mayor and his supporters, Caspa says, "Their objective is simple: to kick all the Latinos out."

'Mexican-hating county'

Costa Mesa, "The City of the Arts," is located on 17 square miles of bluffs just inland from the California coast, in the midst of Orange County, a staunchly conservative region with a long history of groundbreaking initiatives designed to drive out Hispanic immigrants. "Orange County is the most Mexican-hating county in the country," says Orange County Weekly syndicated columnist and investigative editor Gustavo Arellano.

The county is home to Minuteman Project co-founder Jim Gilchrist, whose "citizens border patrol" now has chapters nationwide, and to the California Coalition for Immigration Reform (CCIR), a major force behind 1994's Proposition 187, which sought to deprive undocumented immigrants of social services, health care, and public education. CCIR's official ballot argument described Proposition 187 as "the first giant stride in ultimately ending the ILLEGAL ALIEN invasion." The bulk of Proposition 187 was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge years after it was passed by 59% of California voters, but it has nevertheless served as the model for similar measures in other states, notably Arizona's Proposition 200.