Amnesty Guarantee for Aliens Rejected : Panel Rebuffs Democratic Changes in Simpson Immigration Bill

The Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday rejected Democratic attempts to insert a guarantee of amnesty for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens into a pending immigration package, setting the stage for an eventual showdown with the House over the touchy issue.

And, on party-line votes, the Senate panel turned down other Democratic revisions that sought to scale back a proposed expansion of guest worker programs and to safeguard Latinos from the increased job discrimination that critics fear might result from new restrictions on the hiring of illegal aliens.

As the committee scheduled more debate for next week on the measure by Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), an even more sweeping immigration bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Peter W. Rodino Jr. (D-N. J.), the powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

‘Moral Price’

“As Americans, we must ask ourselves how much longer we are willing to pay the moral, social and economic price of avoiding our sovereign responsibility to control our borders,” Rodino said in outlining the rationale for his measure.

“I am fearful that, unless Congress acts to address this problem now, the time may come when America is forced to close its doors to everyone.”

The Rodino bill, patterned after a package debated but not approved last year by a House-Senate conference committee, would establish civil and criminal penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens--a practice not currently forbidden and believed responsible for leading many of the Third World nations’ poor to enter this country illegally.

In addition, it gives many aliens who arrived in the United States illegally before 1982 the chance to seek legal status.

Amnesty Conditional

By contrast, the Simpson bill proposes amnesty only for those who arrived before 1980--and then only if a presidential commission certifies that new get-tough measures have begun to curtail the tide of illegal immigrants, whose ranks have been estimated at up to 6 million.

Latino leaders have expressed dissatisfaction with both proposals, which they contend could aggravate discrimination against Latinos legally in the United States and rob migrant workers of job opportunities because restrictions on the temporary importation of cheap foreign farm laborers would be eased.

Although echoing some of the same reservations, Democrats on the Senate panel Thursday sought only to modify the Simpson bill so that it would more closely resemble the new Rodino measure. But the Republican majority defeated several amendments that would have restored automatic amnesty, set limits on the number of guest workers who could enter the country and terminated the employer sanctions if Congress determined that they led to increased discrimination.

Metzenbaum Frustrated

At one point during the meeting, an obviously frustrated Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) complained that Republicans, by backing a large-scale expansion of guest worker programs, were knuckling under to Western growers and farmers who want to ensure a large supply of low-cost labor to pick and plant crops.

“For the life of me, I can’t understand how senators who campaign with American flags on their lapels can support a program to import cheap Mexican labor and take jobs away from Americans,” he growled.

But Simpson defended his measure, saying that its provisions were crafted to overcome growing opposition to any reform and to hasten the implementation of legal protections for illegal aliens who, because they must hide from the law, are ripe for abuse by employers.

“There are millions of people in the U.S. now that are exploitable, used and expendable,” he said. “. . . We want to make some changes in a status quo that is repugnant to us all.”