U.S. Plan Targets Alien Smuggling : Immigration: Clinton proposal would stiffen penalties for racketeers behind the trade and detain those foreigners who are caught. He also names new INS chief.

Decrying a “practice of unspeakable exploitation,” President Clinton on Friday announced a program to combat the smuggling of illegal immigrants, combining stiffer penalties for racketeers with steps to make it harder for smuggled foreigners to disappear undetected once they arrive in this country.

To carry out the task, he nominated Doris Meissner, an immigration expert and former acting commissioner of the Immigration and Natural Service, to head the agency.

Saying that immigration policy “must be a priority,” Clinton said that despite America’s immigrant history, “we can’t afford to lose control of our own borders or take on new financial burdens at a time when we are not adequately providing” for all Americans.

In a Rose Garden ceremony, Clinton said the plan showed America’s “abhorrence of the trafficking in human beings for profit and its determination to combat this illegal activity.”

The announcement came as Adminstration aides were trying to craft a strategy that would help them deal with immigration as a political issue, particularly in California, which was the keystone of Clinton’s 1992 victory.

With Meissner now chosen, Administration aides will begin drafting a policy that will seek to satisfy a growing outcry over illegal immigration--from Democrats and Republicans alike--while trying not to offend the sensitivities of minority constituents.

Despite the fanfare, the anti-smuggling plan was rushed into public view before it had been completed. Adminstration aides acknowledged that they are at least two weeks away from drafting the legislative proposals that would give the plan much of its force.

The Clinton plan would seek to increase the penalty for smuggling immigrants into the country from the current five years in prison to 20 years. It would also provide that penalties under the far-reaching Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act would apply to such smuggling.

The measure would give federal authorities broader powers to seize the assets of smugglers.

The proposed law would also seek to create so-called “summary exclusion” procedures for smuggled immigrants. Under such procedures, they would receive admission hearings on an accelerated basis--in perhaps as little as 10 days, compared to periods that now run from 18 months to three years.

And, in a significant departure from current practice, they would be detained, instead of “paroled,” after they are apprehended, so that they could not disappear.

The new anti-smuggling sanctions would not, however, affect immigrants who are smuggled across the U.S.-Mexican border by “coyotes” in trucks or buses, officials said.

It is instead meant to apply only to smuggling operations of organized criminals who have operations and assets abroad and in the United States.

Through stiffer penalties for smugglers and the prospect of detention for immigrants, Administration officials hope to dampen the incentive for such smuggling on both ends.

“We hope to send a message,” said an Administration official.

However, the Administration apparently does not intend to alter the special consideration given to Chinese immigrants who claim that they have suffered from a Chinese government policy that restricts couples from having more than one child.

Many Chinese immigrants have successfully cited such persecution in pressing asylum claims.

The Administration’s plan also calls for:

* The United States to work with other countries to combat smuggling efforts abroad, including the use of U.S. intelligence resources. The efforts would be similar to efforts abroad to fight drug smuggling and terrorism, officials said.

* Improved coordination between the 12 federal agencies that are involved in fighting such crimes.

* Stepped-up efforts to seize smugglers’ ships on the high seas.

The Administration’s plan will be among five other bills that have been introduced in Congress to deal with the problem. Some lawmakers predicted Friday that efforts to stiffen penalties would be well-received.

“I think they (members of Congress) will absolutely go for it,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Penalties are now “ridiculously low,” she said.

The growing incidence of smuggling was highlighted earlier this month when a freighter carrying 300 Chinese nationals ran aground off New York City. Six people drowned as they attempted to escape. Authorities know of at least 14 seaborne smuggling operations since August, 1991.

Still, the number of Chinese immigrants involved in such incidents is dwarfed by the number of people illegally entering the United States from Mexico, INS officials noted. Apprehensions at the border now are running at just over 1 million a year, about the same for the last three years, an INS spokesman said.

Although Chinese immigrants attempting to enter the country are smaller in number, the issue of their illegal immigration is of concern “on humanitarian grounds,” the INS spokesman said. He contended that women are frequently raped aboard the jam-packed ships and once here, the immigrants are “held in bondage” until they pay off debts to smugglers.

As early as 1991, the Senate Governmental Affairs permanent investigations subcommittee found that Chinese gangs were behind efforts to smuggle illegal immigrants from China into the United States.

On Friday, INS agents in New York arrested five members of the White Tigers gang on charges of conspiring to smuggle immigrants and “rescued” 22 Chinese who were “being held captive for payment of their passage,” the INS said.

The 22 Chinese nationals, being held for illegal entry into the country and as witnesses against the alleged smugglers, had been taken to New York earlier this month from San Francisco, where they arrived June 2 aboard the ship Angel, an INS spokesman said.

Meissner, who had won Atty. Gen. Janet Reno’s support for the INS job, is widely viewed as a moderate on immigration policy questions.

She served during the Ronald Reagan Administration as acting INS commissioner and in other senior INS posts between 1981 and 1985. Since then, she has been senior associate and director of immigration policy projects at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

She was deputy associate attorney general at the Justice Department from 1977 to 1980.