House Votes Not to Evict Aliens : Approves Ban on Ouster at Federally Run Units

The House voted Wednesday to prevent tens of thousands of illegal aliens from being forced out of public housing as its Judiciary Committee began debating controversial, landmark legislation designed to curb the flow of such immigrants into the country.

On a voice vote, lawmakers in the Democratic-run chamber agreed to stop the eviction of most illegal aliens now living in government-run dwellings, despite new federal guidelines that, beginning Aug. 1, will bar illegal aliens from publicly run housing units.

The proposal, attached to a $14-billion bill authorizing a wide range of federal housing programs for fiscal 1987, also would allow federal relocation funds to be used for about 100 families facing eviction from Garden Grove’s Buena Clinton slum as it undergoes urban renewal.

The amendment, sought by Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), would eliminate the legal residency requirement for granting federal relocation funds when people are forced to move because of a federally sponsored urban renewal program.

In the case of Buena Clinton, one of Orange County’s worst slums, the new federal guidelines would have prevented use of a $2-million grant won by Dornan to relocate area residents, more than half of whom are believed to be in the country illegally.

The proposal still would bar public housing authorities from accepting aliens in the country illegally as new tenants.

But it would allow most current illegal residents in public units to stay, including the elderly and families with at least one member who had attained legal status. Even if their parents are in the country unlawfully, youngsters born in the United States are considered citizens.

Debate on the housing bill is in its second week. Last week, lawmakers added a provision that would put a virtual halt to the construction of new government-owned low-income housing.

Orchestrating the drive against eviction of current illegal tenants was an unlikely California duo of the staunchly conservative Dornan and Rep. Edward R. Roybal (D-Los Angeles), a prominent Latino lawmaker.

Dornan, in a tough fight for reelection against six-term Democratic state Assemblyman Richard Robinson of Garden Grove, said it would be “an enormous injustice” to roust illegal aliens from their homes. “There are several innocent families who, if they can’t stay in public housing, will be turned out into the streets,” he argued.

Balked at Spending Funds

“I want to underscore three words . . . justice, fairness and hard work,” Dornan told fellow representatives during floor debate on the three-pronged amendment. “That’s what the people we are talking about represent--hard work . . . They should not be thrown out on the street after they were allowed to move into a federal housing project.”

The amendment also would exempt those 62 or older from having to document citizenship to receive federal housing subsidies. Seniors would be required only to sign under penalty of perjury a statement affirming their U.S. citizenship.

The measure still must be approved in the Senate, where Dornan said he anticipates quick passage.

Roybal said the guidelines laid down by the Housing and Urban Development Department would require the ouster from public housing of any members of a family who could not prove that they were either citizens or legal resident aliens. Many families with mixed legal status would have to leave public housing or break up, he said. In Los Angeles County, he estimated, 15,000 people would be forced to leave government-run housing, many of them senior citizens.

Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee ended months of delay and began debating a sweeping package of immigration law reforms that would provide amnesty to many undocumented aliens in the country but seek to dissuade new arrivals by--for the first time--imposing sanctions on employers who knowingly hire workers here illegally.

The Republican-led Senate last year passed a similar reform package, which included a controversial provision sponsored by Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) that would have allowed Western growers to import up to 350,000 “guest workers” to help pick perishable crops.

Growers, who now rely heavily on illegal labor at harvest time, maintain that domestic labor supplies for the work are inadequate. But critics, among them farm labor and Latino groups, contend that the growers are trying to depress wages by ensuring themselves of a ready supply of low-cost, easily exploitable foreign labor.

Panel Action Stalled

Debate over whether to include a Wilson-type program in the House immigration bill has stalled committee action for months and eventually could doom the measure. Two California lawmakers have led the fight on opposite sides of the issue. Rep. Daniel E. Lungren (R-Long Beach) is championing the pro-grower forces, while Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) has struggled to block passage of a guest worker plan.

Rep. Peter W. Rodino Jr. (D-N.J.), the powerful chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has vowed to kill any immigration legislation that includes a Wilson-type guest worker program. Berman has been struggling to devise a compromise plan that would limit foreign guest workers while satisfying the labor needs of growers by making it easier for illegal farm workers than for other illegal aliens to win legal status.

The committee will take up the guest worker question next week.

Times staff writer Kristina Lindgren contributed to this story.