Chicago Tribune (CT) - SUNDAY, September 29, 1996 Edition: CHICAGOLAND FINAL Section: NEWS Page: 1 Word Count: 1,373
Mary Jacoby and Mike Dorning, Washington Bureau.

With Republicans eager to adjourn and return to their districts to campaign, President Clinton used political leverage to force changes in the immigration bill and clear the major obstacle to passing legislation to keep the government running.

In exchange, Clinton agreed to a massive, catch-all spending bill that Republicans had desperately sought to keep the government funded after the new fiscal year begins Tuesday.

Late Saturday, by a 370-37 vote, the House approved both measures, which were combined to speed passage. A Senate vote is not expected until Monday.

Campaigning in Rhode Island, Clinton said the bill "is good for Americans because it continues to move us toward a balanced budget while protecting, not violating, our values."

However, key legislation authorizing grants to airports nationwide was blocked by Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.). He said the provision, added at the last minute during a joint House-Senate conference meeting at the behest of lobbyists for Federal Express, would have made it harder for its employees to unionize.

White House negotiators had used the threat of another federal government shutdown as a stick to get the GOP to agree to $6.5 billion in additional spending for fiscal year 1997 and to drop the contentious legal immigration restrictions.

Congressional Republicans, battling to retain their majorities in Congress, wanted to avoid another budget showdown. Republicans suffered politically last year after they forced two partial government shutdowns in a futile attempt to get Clinton to agree to their proposed spending reductions.

After working almost literally around the clock for two days, Congress and administration officials reached agreement early Saturday morning.

The $450 billion spending bill, known as an omnibus appropriation, combines funding for the Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Commerce, Justice, State, and Interior Departments. It also funds the Postal Service and foreign aid.

A catch-all bill was necessary because Congress has completed only seven of the 13 annual appropriations bills that fund the government. If no agreement had been reached on the spending bill, the government would have lacked the legal authority to operate beyond midnight Monday.

"The government will stay open," House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) declared Saturday after Clinton indicated he would sign the spending bill.

The House had approved a sweeping immigration reform bill last week after agreeing to drop a provision to bar illegal immigrant children from public schools. Clinton had said he would veto any bill that contained the amendment, sponsored by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.).

At that point, Republicans thought they had cleared the way for passage of the immigration bill. But 11th-hour objections from the White House forced negotiators to make several important changes, which were announced Saturday.

They include:

- Removal of a requirement that legal immigrants be subject to deportation if they use more than one year of certain non-emergency, taxpayer-funded benefits, such as subsidized housing or child care, during their first seven years of residency.

Under the newly-forged agreement, legal immigrants may take advantage of means-tested government benefits for which they are eligible without penalty.

- Modification of a proposal to require a sponsor petitioning to bring a close family member to the United States to have a family income of 140 percent of the poverty level, or about $26,000 a year.

Immigrant advocates complained that the income requirement excluded new arrivals, many of whom start at the bottom of the economic ladder, from bringing their family members to live with them.

The compromise forged by the White House lowers that amount to 125 percent of the poverty level, or about $18,500 for a family of four.

- Removal of a provision that would have barred illegal immigrants from emergency medical treatment for AIDS or the HIV virus.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), the chief House GOP negotiator on the bill, had sought to bar AIDS treatment on the grounds it would provide an incentive for those afflicted to come to the U.S. The administration declared the proposal inhumane and said it would encourage the spread of AIDS.

- Elimination of provisions that would have required sponsors to reimburse the government for certain means-tested public benefits, excluding emergency medical care, provided to immigrants in their charge.

Republicans denied that they had capitulated to the president, even though GOP sponsors had placed high value on the provisions to hold sponsors financially accountable for new immigrants, arguing they were necessary to prevent freeloaders.

"Fundamentally, the process did the immigration bill no harm," said House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.).

The bill, however, continues to allow public and private hospitals to seek reimbursement from the federal government for providing emergency medical care to both legal and illegal immigrants.

It also provides for a tighter verification system to determine whether legal immigrants are eligible for welfare and other benefits.

"We are not going to have illegal aliens coming in and getting on our welfare rolls," said Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), the House chief deputy whip.

Other items in the bill include adding 5,000 new Border Patrol agents over the next five years; that will double the size of the force. It also tightens deportation penalties for illegal immigrants who are convicted of crimes and will impose stronger measures against alien smuggling and document fraud.

Also, it would establish a pilot program to help employers verify whether a job applicant is legal.

Left unchanged are provisions criticized by Simon that allow low-level INS inspectors to immediately expel people who arrive at airports or border crossings claiming they are fleeing persecution at home.

In Providence, R.I., Clinton praised the revamped immigration provisions.

"It recognizes that we are both a nation of immigrations and a nation of laws. It builds on our approach to combat illegal immigration at the borders, at the workplace, and in the criminal justice system, but it does so without hurting innocent children or punishing legal immigrants," Clinton said.

On other issues covered in the omnibus bill, a Democratic-supported provision to forbid people convicted of domestic violence from owning guns survived Republican attempts to weaken the rule.

Republicans had sought to limit the ban to domestic abusers convicted in a jury trial, although many states try such cases before judges rather than juries. Its sponsor, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) called the language in the omnibus bill "a complete victory."

Also removed from the legislation was an attempt to weaken restrictions on logging in the environmentally sensitive Tongass National Forest in Alaska. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) had added the provision earlier in the year, enraging environmental groups.

SPENDING BILL HIGHLIGHTS

For the fiscal year beginning Tuesday, the measure finances the departments of Commerce, Justice, State, Treasury, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Interior and Defense. It also covers foreign aid, cultural programs, the Internal Revenue Service, and dozens of other programs.

Agencies and their budgets include:

- Immigration and Naturalization Service: $3.1 billion, which is $536 million above 1996 and $10 million more than President Clinton's request. Money is included for 1,000 additional Border Patrol agents and 2,700 more detention cells.

- FBI, $2.8 billion, which is $315 million above 1996.

- National Institutes of Health: an increase of $819 million above 1996 for $12.7 billion, which was $371 million more than Clinton's request.

- Legal Services Corp.: $283 million, $57 million less than Clinton wanted.

- Title I education: $7.7 billion. That's the amount Clinton requested; the program is for schools in low-income communities.

- Utility bill aid for the poor: $1.3 billion, the same as in 1996.

- National Endowment for the Arts: $100 million, the same as this year.

- Advanced technology: $225 million, about the same as this year but $125 million less than the White House wanted.

- Naval defense: $3.6 billion for four AEGIS destroyers, and $650 million for a third Seawolf submarine.

- Foreign aid: $12.1 billion, the same as this year and $800 million below Clinton's request.

- Other: $1.1 billion extra in the budget for anti-terrorism activities, $650 million for costs of western fires, $400 million for victims of Hurricane Fran.

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