Clinton Seeks Funds to Curb Illegal Hirings

In an effort to make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to find jobs in the United States, the Clinton Administration will ask Congress to hire about 570 additional investigators for checks of work sites and to finance new methods of verifying that job applicants are in the country legally.

The fiscal 1996 budget that President Clinton will present to Congress on Monday will request $93 million to underwrite the expanded verification programs and add 370 Immigration and Naturalization Service investigators and 200 Labor Department wage-and-hour enforcers, Justice Department officials said Saturday. The proposal represents a 29% increase in those areas.

The request signals a potential turning point in enforcement of immigration laws. The INS traditionally has focused almost solely on border crossings and has relied on voluntary employer compliance with the ban on hiring illegal immigrants.

But experts say the influx of illegal immigrants, a volatile issue in California, will not be significantly reduced unless the government does more to clamp down on employers who violate the law, either knowingly or unknowingly. The INS now regards expanded work-site monitoring as a crucial element in its “interior enforcement” program.

Clinton’s budget would raise immigration-related funding for the INS and four other agencies by more than $1 billion over current levels. In addition to increasing work-site enforcement, the new funds would be used to:

* Hire 700 Border Patrol agents, for a total of 5,682, or 42% more than when Clinton took office.

* Deploy 680 more INS inspectors and 375 Customs Service inspectors at border crossings to help detect fraudulent documents and provide other enforcement and traffic-control assistance.

* Establish an entrance fee of $3 per car and $1.50 per pedestrian to help pay for additional personnel and port-of-entry improvements.

* Double the number of deportations from 49,000 this year to more than 110,000 in fiscal 1996 through such steps as expanding detention facilities and creating “absconder removal teams” to target violators.

* Reimburse $300 million to states for incarcerating illegal immigrants who commit crimes here--an increase of $170 million.

* Provide $150 million in discretionary grants to states for emergency medical services for undocumented immigrants and Medicaid recipients.

The White House proposals are already drawing sharp criticism from immigrant-rights advocates as well as those who favor stronger measures. But they have won the support of a key Republican senator, Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, chairman of the Senate Judiciary immigration subcommittee.

Simpson, who discussed the proposals last week with INS Commissioner Doris Meissner, was described by an aide as “generally positive and supportive.” Much of the proposed funding “mirrors” what is in the Immigrant Control and Financial Responsibility Act that Simpson introduced last month, the aide said.

The new approach was dismissed as little more than “a Band-Aid on a cancer” by Leslie Goodman, deputy chief of staff for California Gov. Pete Wilson, who has clashed with the Administration over immigration and its effect on the state.

“This is a political plan, not a strategic plan, which ignores the will of the people of California when they demanded an end of services” for illegal immigrants by passing Proposition 187 in November, she said, referring to the measure to deny social services, public education and most free medical care to illegal immigrants.

Illegal immigrants are drawn to this country by a combination of jobs and services, Goodman said, not just jobs alone.

Christa Schacht, a legislative attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said the proposed budget “sends a bad message” by failing to provide funds for promoting naturalization of immigrants. Meissner proposed significant funding for that last year, but Congress had not gone along, Schacht said. The new budget “is an indication of how the Administration views immigrants. We’re very upset about it.”

The proposed funding for work-site checks, besides adding investigators, focuses enforcement efforts not only on geographic areas where employment has been a problem but also on 15 industries that historically have depended on illegal workers, Justice Department officials said.

Affected states would include California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Arizona. Targeted industries would include garment makers, construction firms and food services.

The government has had too few investigators to pursue leads from labor sources and business competitors. The new INS and Labor Department investigators would increase Washington’s ability to respond to leads and make second visits to violators, officials said.

But even with more investigators on the beat, the law against employing illegal immigrants will continue to depend heavily on voluntary compliance, Justice Department officials said. The Clinton budget also seeks funding for pilot projects designed to enhance voluntary compliance.

The budget proposes expanding an INS telephone verification system, which allows employers to use an 800 number to verify the work eligibility of non-citizen job applicants. The system, which now serves 200 employers, would be extended to 1,000 in 1996.

Simpson’s bill sets an eight-year deadline for instituting an improved system for verifying identities and work eligibility, including the use of documents resistant to tampering and counterfeiting.

Other pilot programs proposed by the Administration test “quick-response” verification of Social Security cards and explore ways to combine INS and Social Security data to verify work eligibility with security and accuracy and without discrimination.

Certain to be among the more controversial proposals is the fee for crossing the borders into the United States. The levies would be in line with a $14.50-per-ticket charge applied to flights into the United States since 1988.

A Justice Department official said the fee revenue would be used in part to help shorten the lines and delays at border crossings. “This is the era of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), and we have to facilitate crossing the border.”

The Clinton budget includes $5 million for a pilot program to send repeat illegal border crossers from Mexico’s interior back to where their journeys began. Violators are now bused just across the border.

More on Immigration

* A package on illegal immigration is available on the TimesLink on-line service. Articles include proposed technological and political solutions, the effect of Proposition 187 and commentary from The Times opinion pages.

Details on Times electronic services, A8