The 1994 Campaign that Anticipated Trump’s Immigration Stance

Since his first campaign announcement in 2015, Donald Trump and the GOP have sought to appeal to some Americans’ worst fears, scapegoating immigrants for every problem facing the nation. If his rise to power hinged on this ugly rhetoric, it has only gotten worse over the years. In the 2024 election, immigrants have been portrayed as barbarians who eat cats and dogs—or as animals themselves. Making anti-immigrant appeals to win votes is nothing new, however. The playbook from which Trump is drawing was written 30 years ago in California.

In November 1994, immigrants and their families found themselves under siege as California voters overwhelmingly passed into law Proposition 187, a ballot initiative that sought to deny basic social services—such as healthcare and education—to undocumented immigrants and their families.

The lessons of that moment are defining for our own. In the Prop 187 campaign, politicians and activists learned that anti-immigrant politics could deflect from the real problems people faced, all in an effort to galvanize voters. Meanwhile, opponents of the nativist movement also learned how difficult it is to counter such rhetoric and policies, even when they have truth on their side.

California, today overwhelmingly Democratic and progressive, may seem an odd setting for launching a virulently anti-immigrant campaign—especially given the state’s long history and economic dependence on immigration. But before the state earned its liberal reputation, it was a key launchpad for the conservative movement. It was California where Ronald Reagan's political rise began in the 1960s, where the modern English-only movement gained momentum, and where reactionary ideologies found mainstream support during the Cold War thanks to the rise of sunbelt conservatism.

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At the same time, the state had long been a destination for immigrants of color—Mexican, Filipino, and Japanese, among others—all vital to the agricultural industry that has always drawn foreign workers. In the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, agricultural centers like the San Joaquin and Salinas Valleys and cities like Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco attracted economic and political refugees from Mexico and Central America, seeking jobs, stability, and opportunity. While their work helped expand the Golden State’s economy, many were undocumented.

As their numbers grew, however, so did a reaction against them. In the 1970s, California legislators, led by Dixon Arnett, sought to criminalize the hiring of undocumented people—hoping to stem the tide of migration. The resulting legislation was ruled unconstitutional but it set the stage for a growing nativist assault.

Then, in 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which increased border enforcement, imposed penalties on employers who hired undocumented people, and legalized some three million undocumented people, including many Californians. During the debates, Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) pushed to include the admission of temporary workers on an annual basis. He spoke out against immigration raids, which he “deplored,” since immigrants “[did] the work when Americans [would not] take the jobs.”

But IRCA did not stop unsanctioned migration. California continued to grow into a “new Ellis Island” that attracted immigrants—documented and undocumented alike—from Mexico, Latin America, and Asia.

Anxiety about the “browning” of the state only grew. By the early 1990s, nativists were in full panic mode, alarmed at California’s rapidly changing demographics. Simultaneously, the state also became engulfed in social and economic crises: racial unrest following the beating of Rodney King and the acquittal of the police officers who perpetrated it; military base closures at the Cold War’s end that led to the loss of thousands of jobs; and a nagging economic recession.

Many Californians initially blamed Pete Wilson, who had become California’s governor in 1991. Poll numbers appeared to predict certain defeat in his bid for reelection in November 1994.

Then Wilson made a political calculation that embracing anti-immigrant sentiment would turn his political fortune around.

Prop 187 was the brainchild of a group united against what they deemed “illegal immigration.” This included Dick Mountjoy, an assemblyman representing Monrovia; Alan Nelson, the former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) under President Reagan; Harold Ezell, a former regional director for the INS; Ron Prince, an Orange County accountant; and Barbara Coe, founder of The California Coalition for Immigration Reform.

Although Wilson had long recognized the importance of immigration to the state’s fortunes, he gladly became the face of Prop 187. It worked, too. He polled better as he saturated the airwaves with ads that depicted immigrants as criminals, invaders, and threats.

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Communities mobilized against the proposition. Anti-187 activists, led by Latino civil rights leaders like Dolores Huerta, spread the message that anti-immigrant rhetoric was not about illegality. It was about racial anxiety. As one activist put it, “They’re playing games with us… it’s wrong and it’s racist.”

Latino rights advocates understood what the passage of the initiative would mean for their communities, including immigrants and U.S. citizens: that the very color of their skin or the language they spoke would make them targets of harassment, discrimination, and violence.

With the backing of religious leaders, civil rights figures, other ethnic solidarity groups including Asian Americans who also recognized 187 as an existential threat, and labor unions, they fought back. They organized voter registration drives, made phone calls, and took to streets to protest.

It wasn’t enough. With the backing of a political machine, the coalition in favor of Prop 187 weaponized economic and racial anxieties against undocumented immigrants, whom they claimed were taking their jobs, bringing crime, and costing the state's taxpayers millions each year.

Wilson won re-election, and Proposition 187 passed by a two-to-one margin. White Californians provided the largest margins of support, though by smaller margins Black and Asian American voters also approved it. The only major ethnic group to oppose it was Latinos. They rejected the measure in almost mirror image numbers, which can be attributed to the power of the anti-187 movement.

Economists and other researchers, both then and today, showed that the undocumented did not "take" Americans jobs. They were also much less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States. And while the cost of providing health care and education was substantial, immigrants more than repaid the cost through taxes and other subsidies they provided to the economy, through cheap labor and increased productivity, especially in the service and food industries.

Despite its popularity, the law was on shaky legal ground, and a judge placed a restraining order on it almost immediately. After years of legal battles, it was ruled unconstitutional in 1998, when Judge Mariana Pfaelzer struck it down. No portion of 187 was ever implemented. Teachers were not required to report their undocumented students to authorities, healthcare providers were not required to turn undocumented patients away, and students were permitted to remain in school.

But this was not the end of the story.

Nativist activists were determined to take the fight elsewhere and to wage a national battle against immigrants. They found success at the federal level, fostering bipartisan support for increased immigration enforcement, border militarization, and restriction. In 1996, Clinton signed into law IIRIRA, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which made legalization more difficult and restricted access to social services even for legal permanent residents.

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Over the next decades, other states used Prop 187 as a blueprint, recognizing that even if the laws were struck down, the process of galvanizing support for anti-immigrant measures could be politically useful.

And then came the rise of Donald Trump, who like Wilson, seems not to care as much for the facts about immigration as for the political utility of fear.

Making outlandish, patently false claims, Trump regularly dehumanizes immigrants, claiming criminal gangs are taking over American cities, that “illegals” are taking American jobs, and that building a wall to keep them out was necessary. As it did for Wilson, Trump’s politics of nativism paid off. It helped deliver him the White House in 2017. In 2018, the nauseating specter of children in cages, often separated from their parents, became the lasting image of this policy approach.

As was the case in 1994, most of the claims that were used to rationalize these horrors were grounded in misinformation, outright lies, and racist fantasies. Immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits, and they strengthen not only our economy but our society. They are not coming to invade or take jobs; they are coming because there is demand for the work they do and because they are fleeing violence and instability that has roots in U.S. interventions in their home countries dating back decades.

Despite the Trump campaign’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, in a modern globalized world, migration is a fact of life and cannot be stopped. But it can be made more painful and cruel, as we saw in the 1990s and during Trump’s first administration.

It can also be made more orderly, rational, and humane. But doing so would require leaders who wish to do so.

Eladio B. Bobadilla is an assistant professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh, where he specializes in the history of immigration and nativism.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.