But Can It Work?

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

The House's immigration bill is well intentioned--and far from foolproof

Rarely has so important a bill come so far amid so much confusion. Supporters and opponents alike have only fuzzy ideas of how--or whether--it can be made to work, how much it might cost, even how many people it might directly help or hurt. (It would have at least some minor effect on almost everybody who looks for work or pays taxes.) Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, business organizations and union leaders have lined up on both sides. Amendments have switched the AFL-CIO from strong initial support to last-minute opposition.

Nonetheless, the Simpson-Mazzoli immigration bill took a long step toward becoming law last week. It survived a House vote that, late in a tension-filled roll call, appeared on the electronic scoreboards as a 210-210 tie. Final tally: 216 Congressmen (125 Democrats, 91 Republicans) for the bill; 211 (138 Democrats, 73 Republicans) against.

That did not end the marathon dispute over the first comprehensive reform of the nation's immigration laws since 1952. Differences between the House bill and one that the Senate passed overwhelmingly in May 1983 must be reconciled by a conference committee that is supposed to meet this week. Republican Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming, a chief sponsor of the bill, has warned that he cannot accept one House amendment. Democratic Congressman Romano Mazzoli of Kentucky, the other major architect, doubts that the differences can be resolved before Congress begins its three-week summer recess Friday.

If the bill is still a live issue when the Democratic Convention meets in San Francisco on July 16, it may run into a political quagmire. Walter Mondale, Gary Hart and Jesse Jackson are all on record against it; Hispanic leaders, fearful that the bill's proposed sanctions against employers who hire illegal immigrants might lead to job discrimination against all Hispanics, would try to write an anti-Simpson-Mazzoli plank into the party platform. That, in turn, would make it more difficult for Democrats to support any bill that might emerge from the conference committee when Congress reconvenes the week after the convention.

Even so, chances of final passage appear strong enough for both supporters and opponents to begin speculation about how the bill might work in practice. There are two main obstacles to that effort. One is widespread misunderstanding, particularly among employers, of what the bill actually says. The other is the impossibility of pinning down basic information like how many aliens are living in the U.S. Laments New York Republican Congressman Bill Green, who voted for Simpson-Mazzoli: "It's hard to get a handle on the facts."

The bill's purpose is to regain "control of our own borders," in President Reagan's words, and to prevent the further explosion of a shadow society composed of immigrants who live in the U.S. outside either the protection or the obligations of American law. To that end, Simpson-Mazzoli has two major facets, each of which presents immense administrative difficulties:

AMNESTY. Aliens who have been living continuously in the U.S. prior to a certain date could claim legal status, first as temporary, then as permanent residents of the U.S. The Senate specified the cutoff date as Jan. 1, 1980, and on that basis the Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates 1.6 million aliens might qualify. The House set a date of Jan. 1,1982, which the INS believes could allow an additional 1.3 million immigrants to claim legal status. An obvious compromise would be to make the cutoff date Jan. 1, 1981; about 2.2 million immigrants might then be affected.

But these calculations assume that the total population of illegal aliens is somewhere around 6 million. Some experts think the real figure might be twice as high. An even more vexing question is how many immigrants would risk identifying themselves to the INS. They would have to present such documents as rent receipts, bank passbooks and paycheck stubs to prove their length of residence. Those who did so might subject themselves to dunning by the Internal Revenue Service for back taxes. Those whose documentation proved insufficient might in effect be volunteering for deportation.

"If 500,000 [aliens] come forward to claim amnesty, I will be very surprised," says Arnoldo Torres, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Other students of the bill express an opposite worry: that many aliens who came to the U.S. too late to qualify for amnesty would deluge the INS with false documents. "There is going to be an unprecedented level of sub rosa trading in bank deposits and rent receipts," predicts Allen Kaye, a Manhattan immigration lawyer. Also, under the House bill, aliens who qualified for temporary legal residence could claim status as permanent residents only if they could prove they had learned or were studying English and the rudiments of American history and civics. The INS has not even begun to determine how that provision might be enforced.

Aliens given legal status would have to wait five or six years to qualify for most federally funded welfare benefits, such as food stamps and Medicaid, but they would immediately become eligible for some others, like aid to pregnant women. The working estimate for the cost of Simpson-Mazzoli is $8 billion over five years, but the real figure will depend not only on how many immigrants become legal residents but on how generous future Congresses will be in reimbursing states and localities for the cost of extending social services to them. The Administration is worried that the cost could exceed $13 billion in only four years, but Reagan is thought likely to sign the bill anyway.

EMPLOYER PENALTIES. The bill requires most employers to demand that job applicants produce documents indicating they are legal residents of the U.S. The aim is to dry up the flood of illegal immigrants across the 2,000-mile Mexican border by discouraging business people from hiring the aliens. In theory, however, the provision would apply to every type of job seeker: Wall Street investment firms would have to demand documentation for Caucasian M.B.A.s, just as Texas restaurants would for dark-skinned would-be dishwashers. The major exemption is for people who employ no more than three workers; families with a maid or gardener would not be troubled. But firms caught hiring undocumented workers could be fined up to $2,000 for each such employee. Under the Senate bill, repeated violations could lead to jail sentences of up to six months.

Those prospects have excited something resembling panic among many employers. A few factories in the Los Angeles area are already laying off workers they suspect may be in the U.S. illegally. Some bosses fear they may be fined for hiring workers who present bogus credentials. These executives vow to be choosy about whom they employ, even at the risk of provoking antidiscrimination suits by rejected minority applicants. "Let 'em sue," says Arnold Schwedock, executive director of the New York-based Ladies Apparel Contractors Association. "Concern about penalties comes first."

These bosses are wildly misinterpreting the bill. Fines would apply not to employers who have illegal aliens on the payroll now, but to those who hire undocumented workers six months (House version) or one year (Senate) after Simpson-Mazzoli becomes law. Moreover, employers would have no obligation to verify the Social Security cards, birth certificates, driver's licenses or other credentials that applicants might present; in most cases, just asking to see two such documents would satisfy the Simpson-Mazzoli requirements.

The big question is whether the employer sanctions would do much more than spur a great expansion of trade in false documents. Already, phony driver's licenses sell in Los Angeles barrios for $40 to $50 each. "Green cards," attesting that the bearer is an alien legally permitted to work in the U.S., are forged in such quantities that they can be bought for only $12 apiece. Anyone who can get a false birth certificate and one other document, like a driver's license, can usually get a Social Security card with little trouble. In sum, critics contend, Simpson-Mazzoli's documentation requirements are beyond the ability of the INS to enforce.

One other provision of Simpson-Mazzoli, as passed by the House, has stirred so much controversy that it might kill the whole bill. It would permit farmers, mostly in California, to import migrants to pick crops that would otherwise rot for lack of field hands. Opponents charge that those "guest workers"--the total might swell to 500,000--would be cruelly exploited. Cesar Chavez, president of the 40,000-member United Farm Workers, calls the provision a "rent-a-slave" program; the AFL-CIO and Senator Simpson also denounce it. The provision will probably be modified or dropped in the House-Senate conference.

Simpson-Mazzoli's defenders think it can eventually slow, if not stop, the influx of new illegal immigrants, but concede that it will take time and increased enforcement (the bill would also beef up the budget for border patrols and the INS). The principal argument of the supporters is an unenthusiastic one: the bill represents the only kind of compromise that can pass Congress. In their view, the alternative is to do nothing and let an intolerable situation get worse.

A case can be made, however, that the situation is not really intolerable. Some illegal immigrants undoubtedly take work away from U.S. citizens, but many others accept necessary jobs--as janitors, busboys, farm laborers--that hardly anyone else wants. If their wages and living conditions seem substandard to many Americans, they are sufficiently better than those available in the aliens' homelands so that the immigrants keep coming, in numbers that even police-state controls would be hard put to stop. Indeed, to the extent that Simpson-Mazzoli succeeds in slowing the stream, it might replace one problem with another: new strains in U.S. relations with Mexico. The outflow of workers functions as a kind of safety valve for that country, providing an escape for people who cannot be usefully employed in the Mexican economy and would contribute to social and political unrest if they had to stay home.

That case has not been widely persuasive even among the U.S. Hispanic community, which is generally somewhat ambivalent about Simpson-Mazzoli despite the vehement protests of its leaders. Several recent polls of Hispanics turn up substantial support for many of the bill's provisions, including employer sanctions. Like other citizens, these respondents apparently view the tide of illegal immigration, rightly or wrongly, as a threat to both the jobs and wages available to legal residents. Also like other citizens, many of them worry about the capacity of the U.S. to absorb, economically and socially, an uncontrolled flow of aliens. Says Congressman Green: "The bill is not a cureall, but it's better than what we have now." --By George J. Church. Reported by Carolyn Lesh and Neil MacNeil/Washington, with other bureaus

With reporting by Carolyn Lesh and Neil MacNeil/Washington, with other bureaus