Immigration Measure Clears House 230 to 166 : Prospects Brighten for Congressional Approval of Reform Package Feared Dead 2 Weeks Ago

Landmark immigration reform legislation easily cleared the House Thursday night, brightening chances that Congress soon may resolve a frustrating, 15-year struggle to tighten control of the nation’s porous borders.

The Democratic-controlled chamber passed the bill by a 230-166 margin, signaling a major comeback for the sweeping and controversial measure that would mandate fines and jail terms for employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens while offering legal status to tens of thousands of others already in the country.

Sponsors of the package dismissed it as dead two weeks ago when the House turned down a Democratic plan to resolve a critical dispute involving the rights of Western growers to retain their largely alien work forces. But key Republicans and Democrats revived the bill with a new compromise this week, prompting many lawmakers to marvel during Thursday’s debate about the reform drive’s resiliency.

Long Warring Factions

Cracked Sid Morrison, a Washington Republican: “As Yogi Berra once said, ‘This seems like deja vu all over again.’ ”

Legislative conferees will work over the weekend to reconcile the House package with a Senate version approved more than a year ago. But Senate sources, saying that long warring factions at last had united behind major elements of the proposals, indicated prospects for final passage are good and a bill could be on its way to President Reagan early next week. He is expected to sign it.

“The temperature is just much better,” said Mary Kay Hill, a spokesman for Senate Majority Whip Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), chief sponsor of the Senate bill.

And following the House vote, Rep. Romano L. Mazzoli (D-Ky.), chairman of the House judiciary subcommittee on immigration, predicted that it was “a better than even bet” that Congress would pass a bill within days.

Despite the optimism, the House bill only narrowly survived being gutted late Thursday when an amendment to remove the amnesty provisions for those illegally here was defeated by a small margin.

The measure includes a controversial section that would temporarily bar the Reagan Administration from deporting refugees from El Salvador and Nicaragua who claim that they have fled political repression and violence. Many church groups have participated in so-called “sanctuary” programs to hide such refugees from federal agents.

House supporters of the legislation said that the illegal immigrant flow has risen to crisis proportions and could trigger a backlash against foreigners in this country if it is not stopped. “How can we live with this problem?” asked House Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter W. Rodino Jr. (D-N.J.), the bill’s chief sponsor. “How can we not address it?”

But Rep. Robert Garcia (D-N.Y.) echoed the fears that the threat of sanctions will make employers fearful of hiring any Latinos. “Sanctions will be detrimental to those people of color, those people with a foreign accent or face,” he said.

Arguing for the bill, Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) said that border controls have been so lax that during a recent visit to a border area near San Diego he saw several men he believed to be illegal aliens boldly milling about in open view on U.S. soil.

“One of them turned around--he probably didn’t know I was a congressman--and dropped his pants and gave us the international sign which sort of symbolized what’s going on down there,” Dornan said.

Issue Dominated Debate

Senate negotiators are expected to adopt the complex House compromise on farm worker hiring. The farm worker question has been the tail that wagged the dog of immigration revision, dominating the debate even though the government estimates that field workers represent only 8% to 15% of the nation’s illegal work force. Growers in the West and Southwest claim that they are heavily dependent on illegal workers and that the imposition of sanctions would decimate their work forces and leave fruits and vegetables to rot on the ground.

To allay those fears, the Senate bill included a plan that would allow growers to import up to 350,000 foreign guest workers a year. That was bitterly opposed by labor advocates in the House, who claimed that growers could easily exploit such workers and capitalize on their availability to unfairly keep down labor costs.

The House compromise would allow growers to hold on to many of their illegal workers who otherwise would not qualify for legal status under the legislation. Under the plan, as many as 350,000 alien workers who could prove that they had worked in the fields for at least 90 days in each of the previous three years would become eligible for temporary resident status.

Status Could Be Upgraded

In a little over three years from the date the bill became law, those workers could be upgraded to permanent resident status, qualifying them for so-called “green card” work permits and setting them on the official track to eventual citizenship.

In addition, farm workers who could demonstrate as little as 90 days of field work in the year that ended on the previous May 1 also could qualify for temporary resident status, but they would have to wait at least four years to become permanent residents.

The compromise also includes procedures that could allow growers to import replacement workers who also would become eligible for legal status should large numbers of the growers’ work force someday leave the fields for jobs elsewhere.

Another key provision, designed to allay concern that employee sanctions might foster job discrimination against Latinos, would eliminate penalties against employers after 6 1/2 years unless Congress voted to renew them.

But other significant differences between the two sides remain to be ironed out:

--The House bill would offer amnesty to most illegal aliens who could prove that they had lived in the country before Jan. 1, 1982. The Senate bill is much less generous, setting the cutoff date at Jan. 1, 1980, and delaying formal legalization procedures for up to three years.

--The conferees must also weigh conflicting provisions on how much the federal government should reimburse states such as California for the added welfare and education costs.

Legalization is expected to boost school enrollment in many areas as well as swell demands on local aid programs, which should be further stretched by provisions in both bills that would ban those given legal status from receiving federal welfare benefits for several years.

--Negotiators also will have to resolve differences in the schedules of fines and jail terms the bills mandate for employers who purposely hire illegal aliens. Authors of the legislation contend that such sanctions are the key to reducing a flood of illegal entries that the government estimates have soared into the millions each year.

Most illegal immigrants come seeking jobs which, although low-paying by American standards, seem lucrative to the aliens. Outlawing the practice of hiring illegal workers could eliminate the magnet that draws them here, backers contend.

In another significant move backed by agricultural interests, the House voted Thursday to require federal agents to obtain search warrants before conducting raids on open fields to search for illegal aliens. The Senate bill contains similar language. At present, agents do not need warrants to conduct such raids.