President Signs Alien Bill Amid Funding Worry : Spotlight Now Focuses on Regulations by INS to Implement New Law

As President Reagan signed the comprehensive immigration bill into law Thursday, some supporters already were expressing concern about whether adequate funding will be available to implement the historic measure.

“I’m really happy that this thing is finally done,” said Rep. Romano L. Mazzoli (D-Ky.), a co-sponsor of the measure, in an interview after the White House signing ceremony. But he added: “It is one thing for a party to say this is our baby and another to give it the proper nourishment and sustenance.”

Mazzoli’s concerns reflected the shift in focus on immigration reform now that 15 years of legislative effort to get a new law finally has ended.

Questions Arise

Now taking the spotlight are questions about what regulations the Immigration and Naturalization Service will propose to carry out the mandate, how the six-month campaign to educate the public will be conducted and, most immediately, how the mandate will be paid for.

Because the spending ceiling for a group of agencies that included INS already had been reached when the bill was passed at the end of the congressional session, an appropriation for the necessary funding now must be submitted in the new congressional session beginning in January, and it must compete with other programs for funds.

Although such concerns were on the minds of reform supporters, they were put aside briefly Thursday when Reagan signed the legislation, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House with a flourish of praise for those who had brought it to fruition.

Calling the measure “an excellent example of a truly successful bipartisan effort,” Reagan said: “Future generations of Americans will be thankful for our efforts to humanely regain control of our borders and thereby preserve the value of one of the most sacred possessions of our people--American citizenship.”

Grants Legal Residency

The most extensive revision of immigration statutes since 1952, the law offers legal residency to most illegal immigrants who have been in the country continuously since Jan. 1, 1982. Applications will be taken for a year, beginning in May.

It allows alien farm workers to gain legal status if they lived and worked here at least 90 days of the year ending last May 1. The law also provides fines and jail terms for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants in the future.

To implement the law, the INS was authorized an extra $422 million for fiscal 1987 and $419 million for 1988--on top of its current $600-million budget.

Now--because the money was authorized but has not been appropriated--INS must run the gantlet of the congressional appropriations process.

A Democratic aide suggested that the process would be a contentious one. “There are all kinds of competing things,” the aide said, including the ambitious new anti-drug program.

‘Little Bit of Dice Rolling’

An INS official said that the agency likely will begin its six-month public education program with money advanced from future months and hope that the supplemental funding process goes well early next year. “It’s a little bit of dice rolling,” the official said. “If we didn’t get the money, we wouldn’t have a program.”

In assessing the chances that adequate money will be approved, most officials hedged their bets. Rex G. Buffington, press secretary for Sen. John C. Stennis (D-Miss.), who is likely to be the new chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that while Stennis is supportive of immigration reform, “money is going to be tight for everything.”