Will Reintroduce Immigration Bill : Latinos Oppose Employer Sanctions, Roybal Says

California Rep. Edward R. Roybal (D-Los Angeles) said Wednesday that Latino groups do not like a plan for limited sanctions on employers of illegal aliens and that he will reintroduce a bill from last year that provides for no penalties against such employers.

At the same time, he expressed disappointment that a trial proposal he had made to limit sanctions--which he termed a “conciliatory effort”--had failed to stimulate Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) and Rep. Romano L. Mazzoli (D-Ky.) to discuss a compromise replacement for their sweeping immigration reform measure. That bill, which died in Congress last year, would have imposed extensive sanctions against employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens.

“From the reaction that I have received, I am absolutely certain that Hispanics stand united in their opposition to sanctions and fear the discrimination and barriers to employment that sanctions would create,” Roybal said.

Significant Modification

Meanwhile, an aide said that Simpson was reviewing the draft of a new immigration measure that would retain the basic elements of last year’s Simpson-Mazzoli bill but also might include at least one significant modification: linking an amnesty program for illegal aliens to proof that employer sanctions work.

“When the employer sanctions are found to be effective and non-discriminatory, then the legalization program would kick in,” the aide, Mary Kay Hill, said in describing the proposed modification.

She said the change is being considered in an effort to defuse substantial opposition to granting legal status--or amnesty--to large numbers of persons who migrated to this country illegally.

“The senator feels that, in the past, immigration reform has had a lot of opposition from those who wholeheartedly support most provisions but feel we should not be rewarding illegal activity,” she said. “He absolutely will not waver on amnesty--he can’t imagine the Senate would be a party to deporting 12 million people (one estimate of the number of illegal aliens).”

Opposition Acknowledged

But she added that Simpson, recognizing the opposition to amnesty, might support tying its implementation to proof that employer sanctions are “going to do the trick.” Simpson is expected to introduce a new bill in two or three weeks, Hill said.

California Rep. Daniel E. Lungren (R-Long Beach) already has introduced a bill similar to last year’s Simpson-Mazzoli bill.

Last year’s measure, which died in a Senate-House conference committee as time ran out on the 98th Congress, would have hit employers with stiff fines if they hired illegal aliens. Roybal’s trial proposal this year called for imposing sanctions only in cases where there was a well-established “pattern” of hiring such persons.

“For example,” Roybal explained, “if a firm of 100 people had 60 illegals and paid them less than the 40 workers who were Americans, that would show a pattern of practice.”

Discrimination Feared

But Roybal said that Latinos across the nation had expressed the fear that even limited sanctions would lead inevitably to widespread discrimination against job seekers who appear “foreign.”

Roybal’s pending legislation would provide amnesty to all aliens who migrated illegally before 1982, stiffen enforcement of existing labor, health and safety laws and upgrade the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Currently, Roybal said, the INS is so understaffed that only two clerks are available in the Los Angeles office to handle status-adjustment cases of immigrants standing in “lines that stretch around the building.”