May 16, 2000
Coalition Urges Easing of Immigration
Laws
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
ack
Kemp, the former Republican candidate for vice president, and Henry G.
Cisneros, the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, are
leading an unusual coalition of conservatives and liberals that is
beginning a major campaign to persuade Congress to ease the nation's
immigration laws.
Mr. Kemp and Mr. Cisneros are scheduled to announce an initiative
today in conjunction with immigrant groups and the nation's Roman
Catholic bishops that calls for admitting more immigrants into the
United States and granting amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal
immigrants.
The coalition brings together conservatives who view immigrants as
an important engine for the economy with religious leaders and
immigrant organizations who worry that many hard-working illegal
immigrants are consigned to exploitative jobs and lives with little
stability.
"What we're seeing is the beginning of a new pro-immigrant alliance
that is likely to reshape immigration policy," said Frank Sharry,
executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a
Washington-based group that supports the easing of restrictions on
immigrants.
The coalition includes Americans for Tax Reform, the United States
Catholic Conference, the Arab-American Institute, the National Asian
Pacific American Legal Consortium and the National Coalition for
Haitian Rights. Another coalition member is the National Retail
Federation, one of many business groups that says that with the
unemployment rate so low, business sorely need immigrant workers to
fill their jobs.
"I was at a meeting with the Chamber of Commerce, the truckers
organization and other businessmen, and they all said the biggest
problem we face is, we're running out of workers," said Grover
Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.
The coalition's statement comes as the presumptive presidential
nominees, Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush, have sought
to outmaneuver each other in wooing Hispanic-Americans and other
immigrant groups.
For Mr. Kemp, the new effort is consistent with his longtime
practice of prodding many Republican leaders to jettison their
anti-immigrant proposals.
In a statement to be issued today, the coalition will back a
proposal, embraced by President Clinton and the business community, to
increase the annual ceiling for the number of immigrants with
high-tech skills. But the coalition said Congress should not stop
there in changing immigration laws.
The coalition called for granting legal status to more than 300,000
immigrants who fled wars and political chaos in Haiti, El Salvador,
Honduras and Guatemala and applied unsuccessfully for refugee status.
The coalition said these immigrants should be treated the same as
those from Cuba and Nicaragua who have been granted refugee status.
The coalition also backed granting legal status to more than
100,000 other longtime residents who have been in the United States
since before 1986.
"It is getting irritating that the only immigration crisis that
Congress is prepared to address is the high-tech community's crisis,
while there is crisis in many other areas in immigration policy," said
Cecilia Munoz, vice president for policy of the National Council of La
Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights group and a signer of
the statement.
Last Thursday, President Clinton asked Congress to provide 200,000
visas for high-tech workers in each of the next three years, a major
increase from existing law, which limits the number of such visas to
107,500 in 2001.
Mr. Clinton also called for granting legal status to some groups of
longtime illegal immigrants, although many lawmakers have balked at
that proposal in the past.
K. C. McAlpin, deputy director of the Federation for American
Immigration Reform, which pushes for stricter rules on immigration,
opposed the proposals to grant amnesty and increase immigration
quotas.
"Our reaction is basically the same as the American people -- every
time they're polled they say they want less immigration not more," Mr.
McAlpin said. "The American people are adamantly opposed to rewarding
people who break our laws to come here illegally."
That view clashed sharply with the one adopted by the Roman
Catholic bishops. Kevin Applebee, director of migration and refugee
policy for the United States Catholic Conference, said, "The bishops
strongly believe that the groups involved have lived in this country
for several years, established ties and built equities and thus are
deserving an opportunity to remain in our country on a permanent
basis."
Officials who helped negotiate the statement said several labor
unions with many immigrant members were debating whether to sign. The
officials said those unions hesitated for fear of clashing with the
A.F.L.-C.I.O., which has opposed expanding programs that grant visas
to high-tech and other skilled workers.
