Twenty years ago this month, 59 percent of California voters passed a ballot measure designed to set up a state-run immigration system and deny most public benefits — including K-12 education — to illegal immigrants. Proposition 187 was widely viewed as one of the harshest anti-immigrant measures in the country. But when President Barack Obama last week signed executive orders to protect about 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, there were only muted protests in the Golden State. And polls show that more Californians back Obama on this than oppose him. “It’s a very different atmosphere from what we had...
