Immigration Bill by Rodino Expected Today : Would Threaten Fines, Jail Terms for Hiring of Illegal Employees

Rep. Peter W. Rodino Jr. (D-N.J.), the influential chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is expected to propose legislation today designed to curtail illegal immigration by threatening employers with fines and jail sentences if they knowingly hire workers illegally here.

The Rodino immigration reform package, an outline of which was obtained by The Times on Wednesday, also would provide immediate amnesty for hundreds of thousands of persons who entered this country illegally before 1982.

The measure closely resembles a compromise immigration reform bill sponsored by Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) and Rep. Romano L. Mazzoli (D-Ky.) that cleared the Senate and the House in different forms last year but died in conference committee.

Simpson this year already has introduced a less sweeping proposal, which is pending in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Because Mazzoli has declined to sponsor legislation so far this year, Rodino’s measure probably will become the leading immigration bill in the House.

Up to 6 Million

Simpson’s new proposal would impose fines, but no criminal penalties, on employers who consciously put illegal aliens on their payrolls. It also would limit amnesty to illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States before 1980 and delay the legalization process until a presidential commission had certified that sanctions and other enforcement measures had effectively curtailed the flood of illegal immigrants, whose numbers have been estimated at anywhere from 1.5 million to 6 million.

Arnoldo S. Torres, a Washington lobbyist and official of the National Hispanic Leadership Conference, said he is “disappointed” in the Rodino bill. But he found it more palatable than the Simpson version because, among other things, it would legalize a greater number of illegal immigrants.

Torres and other Latinos are particularly upset about the proposed penalties on employers of illegal immigrants.

Risk of Arrest

Simpson contends that peasants from Central America and elsewhere will continue to risk arrest in this country as long as they can find employment. But Latino representatives say that all Latinos, not just those here illegally, would face increased job discrimination if employers could be fined or even jailed for knowingly hiring those without legal status.

“I would have hoped that Rodino would have seriously addressed the concerns of discrimination and displacement of migrant farm workers,” Torres complained.

Latino leaders, saying that migrant farm workers legally living in this country could lose jobs, also dislike provisions in the Rodino and Simpson proposals that would allow for the continuation and possible expansion of programs designed to allow growers to import a large number of “guest workers” for temporary jobs to plant and harvest crops.

Torres said the Rodino measure, like last year’s bill, could face rough going on Capitol Hill because it contains provisions sure to anger several factions in the immigration debate: Latinos, business organizations and farmers.

Fine Schedules

The Rodino and Simpson proposals outline similar schedules of fines to be levied on employers for knowingly hiring undocumented workers. But Rodino, in provisions strongly opposed by major business organizations as costly and unfair, also would impose penalties of up to $1,000 and six months in jail for employers who displayed a “pattern” of hiring illegal workers, and it would require that employers keep records to prove that they had tried to determine job holders’ legal status.

Under the Simpson measure, aliens without legal status would lose their potential right to amnesty if they left the United States at any time after the beginning of 1980. The Rodino measure would not penalize illegal immigrants for “brief, casual and innocent trips” outside the country.