Senate Panel Opts to Split Bill on Immigration

In a key victory for advocates of legal immigrants and the businesses that hire them, a Senate panel voted Thursday to split immigration reform legislation into two parts so that Congress can address the issues of legal and illegal entry separately.

If it stands, the move by the Senate Judiciary Committee would allow lawmakers to cast a politically popular vote to crack down on illegal immigration without being forced to endorse far more controversial restrictions on legal immigration. Some advocates contend that separating the two issues makes it highly unlikely that Congress will tackle legal immigration at all.

Behind the effort to split the bill is an unusual political coalition of private sector employers, ethnic groups, religious organizations and other affected parties. They applauded the committee’s decision and vowed to begin work on toning down, or eliminating altogether, the proposed restrictions on legal immigration.

“This is an important victory but it is only one battle in a very long war,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. “We’re going to continue to fight the proposed drastic cuts in legal immigration.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) opposed the split, saying that Congress needs to confront the problem of “chain migration,” in which one legal immigrant brings many relatives into the country. It is one of the issues that could fall by the wayside if legal immigration is shunted into separate legislation.

Because of the complicated political crosscurrents affecting immigration reform, Feinstein said, the split will make it far tougher for any legislation to emerge from Congress this year.

Others said that it is primarily the legal immigration provisions that are in serious jeopardy.

“I think it is a clear statement that there are some major imperfections in the legal immigration bill as it is currently constituted, and hopefully, we can work together . . . to find a broad, bipartisan agreement on something,” said Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.), chief proponent of the split.

At issue are proposals to scale back the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country each year and to eliminate some preference slots allocated to family members of legal immigrants.

The ceiling on legal immigration, now about 775,000 each year, would be reduced to about 550,000 under the Senate legislation. The measure would still allow a naturalized citizen to bring into the country a spouse and minor children but would make it more difficult for siblings, adult offspring, parents or other relatives to enter.

With immigration officials facing a huge backlog of requests for family visa entries, lawmakers disagree on who should get preference and whether there ought to be income requirements on those bringing relatives into the country.

Underlying the technical debate over legal immigration is fundamental disagreement on the central question of whether immigrants help the country in their pursuit of the American dream or whether they become a drain at some numerical level.

Members of Congress point to a host of conflicting studies. Some note that legal immigrants produce a significant portion of our country’s patents, while others contend that they are more likely to receive welfare benefits than other Americans.

“It’s an issue filled with emotion, fear, guilt and racism,” remarked Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), sponsor of the legal and illegal immigration reforms.

Simpson fought aggressively to keep the bill intact. Last week, in an effort to defuse opposition from business, he dropped cuts in the number of skilled foreign workers that U.S. companies could hire each year.

After the committee voted, 12 to 6, to divide the issues, Simpson vowed to continue to push for cuts in legal immigration and held out the possibility that he might attempt to rejoin the bills on the Senate floor.

“The issue of chain migration will be dealt with on the floor of both houses because it is a serious problem in America,” Simpson said. “It is taking precious numbers [of spots] from spouses and minor children of permanent resident aliens.”

Some Republicans, including GOP Chairman Haley Barbour, have fought to keep the two issues combined for strictly partisan reasons. President Clinton is expected to happily sign illegal immigration reform, they argue, but combining a crackdown on illegals with tough restrictions on legal immigration could prompt the president to issue a politically damaging veto.

Advocates of cuts in all forms of immigration decried the separation.

“By splitting the bill into two segments, the Senate Judiciary Committee is putting its head in the sand, caving in to a variety of special interests that want to preserve a legal immigration system that’s completely out of control,” said Dan Stein, director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “From a policy and legislative standpoint, demanding an artificial distinction between these areas makes no sense: All titles amend Title 8 of the U.S. Code, and past reform bills have always combined the two areas.”

Next week, the House will take up its own joint immigration bill but Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) and others are attempting to push for a similar split during debate.

A group of California Republicans in the House--led by Rep. Jay C. Kim of Diamond Bar, a legal immigrant himself--wants to split the issue into two bills. They argue that it is unfair to group lawbreakers with those who follow the rules.