In Washington, Gingrich hadn’t made immigration a central plank of his Contract with America, but Pete Wilson’s victory persuaded him that the hardliners in his caucus should run with the issue. The result was the second piece of legislation that Murguía and Muñoz spent the summer trying to fight off. It was an overweening measure crafted by Alan Simpson, in the Senate, and Lamar Smith, the new chair of the immigration subcommittee in the House. Simpson was still smarting from his lost fight over the 1990 Immigration Act, which expanded legal immigration over his objections. With the
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