Senate Weighs Curbs on Legal Immigrants

The Senate began debating a sweeping immigration reform bill Thursday that would place new restrictions on legal immigrants while stepping up efforts to catch those illegally here.

The central issue for many lawmakers is whether the United States has changed so much that legal immigration, long viewed as beneficial to the country, is now thought to do more harm than good.

“This is a totally different United States,” said Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), author of the reform legislation. “We are now a mature nation with a host of serious domestic problems . . . and sustained and excessive immigration is viewed, rightly or wrongly, as compounding our domestic problems.”

But others argued that immigration remains a vital national supplement, providing a continuing flow of labor and helping Americans reunite with families abroad.

“This bill as written speaks to our fears, it speaks to our anxieties it speaks to the pessimism that lurks in each of us,” said Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio). “It says the best days are over. If we do this we start to act as a small country.”