Immigration reform.

PRESIDENT Clinton's decision on Cuban refugees reignited a national policy debate about immigration. Under an agreement worked out with the Cuban government, the U.S. will resettle the 20,000 or so Guantanamo detainees, who Clinton had vowed, only a few months earlier, would never be allowed to come here. In exchange, Castro has agreed that future boat people intercepted by the Coast Guard may be returned directly to Havana.

With one stroke of the pen, Clinton managed to anger Cuban-Americans, advocates for Haitian boat people who are also being held at Guantanamo, Florida taxpayers, and the majority of Americans who are growing increasingly weary of waves of people demanding admission. The White House also demonstrated that it hasn't lost its knack for stepping on its own headlines. The abrupt about-face on Cuba came only four days before the President gave a national radio address in which he announced an important new initiative to control illegal immigration and to deal with immigration emergencies of the kind that has turned Guantanamo into a permanent refugee camp.

The Administration's legislative initiative, introduced in the Senate by Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.), is only one of many that Congress will be considering. The President's proposal contains provisions that Alan Simpson (R., Wyo.), chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, found impressive enough that he delayed a mark-up of his own immigration reform bill in order to incorporate elements of the Administration's bill, according to Dick Day, the subcommittee's chief counsel.

There is a near consensus on both sides of Capitol Hill and on both sides of the political aisle that, before the end of the year, Congress will pass legislation aimed at clamping down on illegal immigration. At the very minimum, congressional leaders promise tougher border-control provisions, a work-eligibility verification system, and more restricted access to public benefits and services by illegal aliens.

Changes in the legal immigration process are also possible, though such changes face a tougher fight, particularly in the House. Even if outright reductions in legal immigration levels cannot be achieved, both Simpson and his counterpart in the House, Lamar Smith (R., Tex.), believe that several significant reforms are achievable. At the top of their list is shifting the emphasis away from extended family reunification in favor of a more skills-based system, and making sponsors liable if the immigrants they bring here become public charges.

Simpson is also likely to introduce a second bill in June in which he will call for cuts in overall immigration levels. Though he would not name an exact figure, Day believes that 500,000 a year (down from current levels of about 900,000) would be a reasonable estimate, judging by a bill Simpson and Bob Dole introduced late in the 103rd Congress. For his part, Smith is not prepared to advocate actual cuts in legal immigration levels. "It's not about numbers," insists Smith. "It's about making immigration policy serve the national interest."

Though he may not be overjoyed at the prospect, Michael Myers, Kennedy's top staffer on the Immigration Subcommittee, stated publicly that his boss expects immigration levels to be adjusted downward. There have also been hints that the White House might go along with cuts in overall levels. Responding to a question at an immigration forum at the World Affairs Council in San Francisco, Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner, who often speaks for the Administration on this issue, challenged Congress to put such a bill on the President's desk.

Significant opposition to reducing immigration is more apt to come from within the GOP. Newt Gingrich has stated that he wants very much to bring an illegal-immigration control bill to the floor of the House, but has said on several occasions that he does not see a problem with current levels of legal immigration. Even stronger are the views of House Majority Leader Dick Armey. He told a Cato Institute audience May 9 that "if anything we should be thinking about increasing legal immigration." Armey might even attempt to block illegal-immigration control legislation if it contains a computerized registry to verify work eligibility -- a system that Simpson, Smith, and former Representative Barbara Jordan (D., Tex.) view as the cornerstone of any effective strategy to combat the problem. Armey called a computerized registry "just a euphemism for a national ID card," which would be "an abomination and wholly at odds with the American tradition of individual freedom."

Smith, who says he "will only produce a bill that is supported by the [House] leadership," is steering clear of the thorny question of numbers, though he thinks Armey's objections to a computerized verification system can be overcome. "I think we ought to consider whether it would be a benefit to take a breather from the current high levels of immigration and give recent immigrants time to assimilate and become citizens," says Smith. But right now he is more concerned about passing a bill that will deal effectively with illegal immigration and end what he calls the "gaming of the legal immigration system."

While Smith has to be concerned with the positions of House leadership, he also acknowledges that there is a significant movement within the party toward dramatic reductions in immigration levels. Patrick Buchanan has made shutting off the immigration flow a major plank in his presidential campaign platform and appears determined to force the other Republican candidates to stake out a clear position on this issue. The leadership's stance also faces a challenge from within Republican ranks on Capitol Hill. Congressman Bob Stump (R., Ariz.), the chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, has introduced legislation calling for a moratorium on legal immigration (with exemptions for spouses and children of U.S. citizens and some refugees), which would result in levels being pared back to about 250,000 annually.

Stump, who waited patiently during the first hundred days while the leadership pursued the agenda in the Contract with America, is now actively and personally promoting his moratorium bill. In just one day recently, he recruited 33 new co-sponsors (bringing the total to 65) and expects to find many more members -- especially freshmen -- who share his view that the country does not need much additional immigration. It doesn't take heavy arm-twisting to find willing co-sponsors for the moratorium idea, says Stump. He nonetheless faces an uphill battle, though he vows to "try my damnedest" to bring his bill to the floor for a vote.

Smith, whose committee has jurisdiction over all immigration matters, promises that Stump's moratorium bill will get a hearing. Though neither Smith nor Simpson personally favors a moratorium on immigration, Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, believes that they are not displeased by talk of a moratorium. Because there is a libertarian, open-immigration streak in the House leadership, a viable threat of a moratorium movement strengthens the hand of centrists like Smith and Simpson by making a moderately reformist position seem more reasonable.

After the resounding victory of Proposition 187 in California last year, and with similar ballot measures being readied in Florida and other states for 1996, it seems certain that a tough illegal-immigration control bill will be on the President's desk by fall whether or not it is accompanied by an overhaul of the legal-immigration process. With the presidential campaign approaching, Simpson is anxious to get it all done this year, says Dick Day. After 15 frustrating years of grappling with the damaging effects of the current immigration policy, Simpson knows better than anyone that not getting it done this year means coming back and facing it next year or the year after that.