PERSPECTIVE ON IMMIGRATION : The ‘Flakes’ Get a Foot in the Door : The Jordan Commission finishes with a bow to extremists who want to drastically limit would- be new Americans.

It’s hard to come indoors from a blizzard without some snowflakes blowing in before you shut the door. So any assessment of the work of the congressional Commission on Immigration Reform should begin with admiration for the job that chairwoman Barbara Jordan did in keeping out most of the “flakes” swirling about in the stormy debate over immigration.

The nine-member commission, the latest bipartisan panel to study this hellishly complex and emotional topic, issued its final set of policy recommendations last week in Washington. The report is 245 pages long, reflecting the detail in which commission members studied immigration. To their credit, they came up with generally reasonable and balanced proposals.

Still, even Jordan--a former member of Congress from Texas largely remembered and justly admired for her measured approach in the Watergate hearings--was affected by the nativist political pressures that have set the negative tone of the immigration debate, especially since last year’s vote on Proposition 187 here in California.

Jordan and her fellow commissioners did not buy into the doomsday scenario of extreme restrictionists--that immigration must come to a halt because this country has reached its “carrying capacity.” The commission instead concluded that a properly regulated flow of immigrants is in the national interest, bringing in newcomers who help create economic opportunity and enhance American culture, among other benefits. The commission also agreed that the United States should continue its honorable tradition of accepting political refugees.

The commission’s recommendations for reordering the priorities under which immigrants are admitted are also level-headed. Priority would go to children and spouses of U.S. citizens and legal residents. Parents would get the next priority. Admission categories for siblings would be eliminated, a practical way to prevent a crush of applications by members of large, extended families. So far, so good.

But the commission stumbled when it decided to recommend lowering the number of legal immigrants admitted each year by about 24%, from the present 725,000 to 550,000, without bothering to explain why in its many pages of documentation.

Neither number is magic, of course. After all, the reason immigration is hard to control is because it responds not to legislated limits but to demographics and economics, the two sciences hardest to predict because they deal with the vagaries of human behavior. That’s why the commission should simply have urged Congress to make the number of immigrant visas flexible, to be reviewed and revised annually by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Why did Jordan opt to play the numbers game? Because the politics of immigrant-bashing is again rearing its ugly head.

Prodded by a handful of ardent restrictionists in Congress, the House is rushing headlong to approve a tough anti-immigration bill, HR 2202, that not only aims to control illegal immigration--by hiring more border agents and building new fences--but also starts to close the door to legal immigration by slashing admissions by 30%.

Under the Jordan commission’s original charter from Congress, its report was not due until 1997. So Jordan and her colleagues are clearly hurrying along in order to have some impact on Capitol Hill’s immigration debate before muddled bills like HR 2202 are enacted--as some surely will be in the current political climate.

Jordan probably hopes to have more influence on the Senate, when it takes up a similar immigration bill. And no doubt the recommendation to lower the number of legal immigrants was included to help make the commission’s other recommendations politically palatable. That may be sound politics, but it is risky, for it could undermine the yeoman work done by the commission overall.

The risk lies in the commission’s acceptance, without explanation or documentation, of the idea that all immigration--legal and illegal--needs to be curbed. This just gives legitimacy to the single-issue extremists who see immigration as the chief problem facing our country--more critical than AIDS, Medicare funding, global warming, nuclear proliferation or anything else. If that sounds exaggerated, consider that some of the most vociferous anti-immigration groups active in Washington trace their roots back to the eugenics movement of the 1930s and other now-discredited racialist ideologies. These snake-oil salesmen are just using the immigration issue as a new bottle to sell their sleazy views.

By opening the door to these anti-immigrant flakes and their obnoxious theories, the Commission on Immigration Reform lessens its chances of having its many sound recommendations taken seriously by reasonable people.