TERROR IN OKLAHOMA CITY : Tougher Immigration Laws Are Expected in Bomb Aftermath : Legislation: Many measures, including anti-terrorist proposals, are not new. But now there is bipartisan support. Civil libertarians express constitutional concerns.

The bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City has injected new urgency into the debate over the nation’s immigration laws and is expected to lead to swift and significant changes in immigration and counterterrorism policies, according to lawmakers and other legal experts.

It has not yet been determined whether international causes or grievances had a role in the blast or whether any recent immigrants to this country were involved.

But the nature of the attack, echoing the blast at the World Trade Center in New York two years ago and bombings in the Mideast and Colombia, has heightened concerns about the nation’s vulnerability to enemies here and abroad.

Many of the tougher measures under consideration have been in the works for some time. But in the wake of the Oklahoma City blast, both Republican and Democratic leaders are promising to shift them onto the legislative fast track when Congress returns from its spring recess next week.

Among the proposals expected to receive wide bipartisan support are measures to:

* Establish special courts to expedite the deportation of suspected terrorists.

* Deny entry into the United States of anyone affiliated with a terrorist group.

* Provide the FBI and other federal investigators with broader surveillance and wiretapping authority.

* Expand the penalties for aiding and abetting terrorists and their illegal entry into the United States.

Most of these provisions, as well as new restrictions on the ability of terrorist groups to raise funds in the United States, were drafted in the wake of the World Trade Center blast and have been incorporated into an Administration-authored anti-terrorism bill now before Congress.

But until the Oklahoma City attack, Congress and the Clinton Administration had been slow to act on the proposals--in part because Republicans in the new Congress were preoccupied with other domestic concerns and also because several of the measures are steeped in controversy over their constitutionality.

Oklahoma City, said James Phillips, a senior policy analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation, “is our second alarm”--one that will substantially “raise the threshold for admission” into this country.

Although many Democrats and civil libertarians remain strongly opposed to some of the provisions in the Clinton bill--including expedited deportations and special “anti-terrorist” courts--the Administration’s allies are now predicting swift approval.

“After this horrible attack, I think this bill will move like lightning through Congress,” said Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee’s crime and criminal justice subcommittee.

House and Senate Republicans said they plan to offer additional legislation to strengthen the Administration’s bill, which they contend does not go far enough to ensure that terrorists are kept out of the United States.

“Our country is like a hotel lobby. You can walk in, walk out,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), who called the Clinton bill a “good beginning” that needs to be reinforced with additional restrictions on immigration.

Both Hyde and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) indicated that they will amend the bill to deny visas to anyone suspected of belonging to a terrorist organization.

U.S. law now allows consular officials to deny visas to foreigners suspected of having been involved in a terrorist attack, but they cannot turn down a visa request simply because someone is believed to be a member of a group that has practiced terrorism in the past.

“Forgive me, but that’s goofy,” Hyde said. “If someone is a member of a terrorist organization, they ought not to be granted a visa.”

Legislation mandating expedited hearings and same-day expulsion for undocumented foreigners arriving with unsubstantiated claims for political asylum, introduced in the wake of the World Trade Center blast by Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), is also expected to be revived and possibly even strengthened, according to GOP sources.

In the wake of the Oklahoma City carnage, “anything that deals with terrorism is likely to be speeded up, and new things are likely to be added,” a senior GOP Senate aide said.

One proposal expected to attract broad Republican support is for legislation that would require all applications for political asylum to be processed overseas, at special consular centers set up at U.S. embassies.

One of the loopholes in current immigration law that has allowed suspected terrorists to slip into the United States has been an asylum process that allows those seeking refuge to remain in the United States while their requests are being considered.

“The asylum hearings are so backed up that what happens is that people show up at an airport, request asylum and then simply disappear into the woodwork,” the Heritage Foundation’s Phillips said. “It’s crazy. . . . We let people walk off an airplane and enter this country simply because they request asylum.”

To some Democrats and most civil libertarians, such proposals go too far.

“At times like these, it’s tempting for Congress to react hastily and rush through legislation to respond to a threat. But we’re asking Congress to take a second look at this bill--to rethink the substantial parts of it that raise constitutional concerns,” said Gregory T. Nojeim, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Under the bill, expedited deportation hearings would be held before a special panel of federal District Court judges, who would review any classified intelligence information and would not be required to share it with the suspect or the suspect’s lawyers. In most cases, the defendant would be entitled to receive only a sanitized summary.

Proponents say this procedure would remove a major stumbling block to deporting suspected terrorists because law enforcement agencies would no longer have to worry about compromising their intelligence sources and methods.

But opponents, including the ACLU, contend that such restrictive measures are an “unprecedented violation of due process rights” that “would eviscerate the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to an extraordinary extent.”

The “most fundamental requisite of due process is that any evidence the government relies upon must be disclosed so that it can be responded to and defended against,” the ACLU said in a recent statement opposing the Clinton bill.

Arab American groups also oppose the bill’s restrictions on fund raising, which they argue could be misapplied to ban contributions to charities and other legal activities merely because of a suspicion that they were linked to any group that the President declared to be a terrorist organization.

“This bill would bring back the most repressive measures of the McCarthy era,” said James J. Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.

But advocates of stronger anti-terrorism measures argue that the protection of U.S. citizens is more important than extending the protection of the Constitution to illegal immigrants or to those who would seek political asylum in the United States.

“There is a delicate balance,” Hyde said.

Times staff writers Sam Fulwood, Melissa Healy and Janet Hook contributed to this story.