Here is a section on an article written on Proposition 187 describing how it violates the constitution.
This was obtained at http://ssbb.com/article1.html
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Constitutional Violations
Based on the judge's statement, the written decision/order, when issued in January, will find that much of the statute violates two of the provisions of the Constitution -- (1) the Supremacy Clause,*7 by stepping on ground preempted by federal immigration law; and (2) the Fourteenth Amendment, first, by effectively ordering the deportation of California residents without hearings or other due process of law and, second, by denial of free education to undocumented children, that Amendment's Equal Protection clause.
Proposition 187 prohibits public social services to those who cannot establish their status as a U.S. citizen, a lawful permanent resident, or an ``alien lawfully admitted for a temporary period of time.''*8 Only persons in those categories may receive health-care services from a publicly funded health care facility, ``other than emergency medical care as required by federal law . . . .''*9 Anyone else must be denied the requested services or other benefits, directed in writing to ``either obtain legal status or leave the United States'' and be reported to the authorities, including the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
Proposition 187 also limits attendance at public schools to U.S. citizens and to aliens lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence or otherwise authorized to be here.*10 The new statute gives school districts until next Jan. 1 to verify the status of pupils and their parents; but whenever they reasonably suspect a violation they have only 45 days to so notify INS and other authorities and to advise parents that schooling will be cut off in 90 days.
The denial of education to children is particularly open to constitutional attack in view of the 1982 Supreme Court decision in Plyler v. Doe.*11 There the Court held that a Texas statute that effectively denied undocumented children a public-school education violated the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. (School authorities, however, were not called on to identify parents who lacked proper immigration status or to report that fact to INS, a requirement in Proposition 187 that allegedly causes undocumented parents, afraid of being turned in, to withdraw even their U.S. children from school.*12)