The leading candidates to replace Gov. Gray Davis if he is recalled from office Oct. 7 have laid out very different takes on an issue that once dominated California politics but has receded from view in recent years: immigration.

With new census figures showing California leading the nation in the number of foreign-born residents, and with Gov. Gray Davis signing legislation to give illegal immigrants driver's licenses, immigration has once again jumped to the front of the state's political discourse.

Democrats, led by Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, are trying to paint Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, an immigrant himself, as anti-immigrant because he opposes policies that blur the distinction between legal and illegal immigration.
Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, has tried to take the high road. He says he favors legal immigration and suggests that people who enter the country unlawfully are open to exploitation, and their presence here harms those at the bottom of the economic ladder, many of whom are immigrants themselves.

Another Republican candidate, state Sen. Tom McClintock, goes even further than Schwarzenegger, vowing to revive Proposition 187, a 1994 measure that sought to deny most public services to illegal immigrants. Although the initiative passed with 59 percent of the vote, it was struck down by a federal district court ruling, and Davis dropped the state's appeals after he became governor in 1999.

Bustamante on Sunday held an emotional rally in Fresno with 2,000 or so supporters, including hundreds of immigrant laborers brought in for a political strategy session hosted by the United Farm Workers union. He ripped Schwarzenegger for his past support of Proposition 187, and he linked the actor to former Gov. Pete Wilson, who remains unpopular in Latino circles because of his aggressive backing for that measure.

"Few groups of people are more exploited, intimidated, used and discarded as immigrants," said Bustamante, whose grandparents were immigrants. "I will protect their human rights -- unlike Arnold."

While Wilson once stood accused of lumping legal and illegal immigrants into one basket, it's now Bustamante who is doing so. During his speech Sunday he said it was unfair to allow immigrants to serve and die in the armed forces while state policy denies them driver's licenses, as if he were talking about the same population. But U.S. military policy allows only legal immigrants to enlist. Any illegal immigrants who fought and died in the services have done so in violation of the rules.

Later, in a meeting with reporters, Bustamante declined to draw any distinction between those who follow the nation's immigration laws and those who do not.

"Immigrants are immigrants," he said. "Anybody who works and pays taxes ought to have a right for citizenship."

Schwarzenegger, an immigrant success story who came to America from Austria in 1968, has a more nuanced position.

"I came to California 35 years ago because I saw this state as the best place on Earth to fulfill my dreams," Schwarzenegger says. "Immigrants contribute to the richness of life in California, and I embrace them."

But Schwarzenegger does not embrace illegal immigration. He opposes giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants because, he says, doing so undermines the legal immigration process. He has promised to try to repeal the law if he becomes governor.

"I know first-hand how immigrants who come to this country and obey the laws have struggled to achieve their dreams," he said. "I am pro-immigrant. But we should not invite fraud or undermine law enforcement."

Schwarzenegger has said that, as governor, he would pressure the federal government to strengthen border enforcement and reimburse California for the cost of providing services to illegal immigrants, which runs into the billions. He also favors a new "guest worker" program to allow more migrant laborers to cross the border legally for employment in California.

"We have to go and create a situation where we can make it legitimate," Schwarzenegger said, "so they can earn that and start becoming part of the system, so they can have the driver's license, and do all the things that everyone else is doing, rather than having always to look over their shoulder. It's terrible the way it is right now."

Bustamante, however, opposes guest worker programs because he says the last one tried by the federal government was unfair to the laborers.

"The guest worker program the last time was almost indentured servitude," he said. "Nobody here has been able to figure out how to deal with all the housing issues, the medical issues, the work area issues, and how the people go back and forth. Nobody has been able to figure those things out."

Bustamante favors giving amnesty to illegal immigrants already in the country. Schwarzenegger opposes such a move, saying it would simply encourage more people to come here illegally in hopes of getting the same break later on.

Bustamante has wrongly accused Schwarzenegger of using immigration as a "wedge issue" to divide Californians. It's actually the Democrats, and Bustamante's own campaign, who are trying to exploit the matter for political gain.

Even so, the debate is good for the state. No issue that affects so much of our public policy should remain off-limits to open political discussion. Driving the immigration debate underground, where it's largely been since 1994, won't make it go away. And pretending that illegal immigrants aren't here won't make it so.