Bomb Likely To Push Immigration, Anti-Terrorist Bills

The terrorist bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City has injected new urgency into the debate over U.S. immigration laws and is expected to lead to swift and significant changes in both immigration and counter-terrorism policies, according to lawmakers and other legal experts.

It has not yet been determined whether international causes or grievances had a role in the blast or whether any recent immigrants to this country were involved. But the nature of the attack, echoing the blast at the World Trade Center in New York two years ago and bombings in the Middle East and Colombia, has inflamed concerns about American vulnerability to enemies here and abroad.

Many of the tougher measures have been in the works for some time, but in the wake of the Oklahoma City blast, the leaders of both parties are promising to shift them onto the legislative fast track when Congress returns from its spring recess next week.

Among the proposals expected to receive wide bipartisan support are measures to:

Establish special courts to expedite the deportation of suspected terrorists.

Deny entry into the United States of anyone affiliated with a terrorist group.

Provide the FBI and other federal investigators with broader surveillance and wiretapping authority.

Expand the penalties for aiding and abetting terrorists and their illegal entry into the United States.

Most of these provisions, as well as new restrictions on the ability of terrorist groups to raise funds in the United States, were drafted in the wake of the World Trade Center blast and have been incorporated into an Administration-authored anti-terrorism bill now before Congress.

But until the Oklahoma City attack, both Congress and the Clinton administration had been slow to act on the proposals - in part because Republicans in the new Congress were preoccupied with other domestic concerns and also because several of the measures are steeped in a controversy over their constitutionality.

Oklahoma City, said James Phillips, a senior policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation, “is our second alarm” - one that will substantially “raise the threshold for admission” into this country.”

But although many Democrats and civil libertarians remain strongly opposed to some of the provisions in the Clinton bill, including expedited deportations and the special “antiterrorist” courts, the administration’s allies are now predicting swift approval.

“After this horrible attack, I think this bill will move like lightning through Congress,” said Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee’s crime and criminal justice subcommittee.

House and Senate Republicans say they plan to offer additional legislation to strengthen the administration’s bill, which they contend does not go far enough to ensure that terrorists are kept out of the United States.