The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MAC NEIL: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Tuesday, four members of Congress debate the issue gridlocking the crime bill. Jeffrey Kaye reports on the high cost of illegal immigration, Charlayne Hunter-Gault gets an African view of the Rwanda tragedy, and essayist Anne Taylor Fleming thinks about privacy. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MAC NEIL: The presidents of North and South Korea will hold their first summit meeting next month in an attempt to defuse a half century of Cold War hostility. Officials from the two countries today announced plans for the historic meeting which will take place in the northern capital of Pyongyang from July 25th through the 27th. Those talks will be followed by another series of meetings in South Korea at a date yet to be determined. The South wants the summit to focus on the North's growing nuclear program. White House chief of staff Leon Panetta said the U.S. was very encouraged by news of the summit. He said President Clinton would be closely following it in determining future U.S. policy. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: The U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may be used to process Haitian refugees, Defense Sec. Perry said today. Over the last two days, the U.S. Coast Guard picked up nearly 1800 Haitians at sea. This morning a U.S. Coast Guard ship returned 170 to Port-au-Prince after they were refused political asylum. At a White House photo session this morning, President Clinton was asked about the situation.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: There has been a significant increase in Haitian refugees I think as a result of political oppression in Haiti, perhaps intensified anxiety over the tougher sanctions. And we're going to examine what our options are there. We do have, as you know, another processing center coming on line but we have not gotten it up and going yet, and as I have said all along, we have to calibrate our response based on our capacity to deal with this. I would also note that the safest and best thing for the Haitians to do is to apply at the end country processing center. That is the safest and best route for the United States. And I would hope that more Haitians would use it.

MR. LEHRER: The ousted president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, spoke about the accelerated exodus today in an appearance at the National Press Club in Washington.

JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE, President-in-Exile, Haiti: Given the escalating violence and repression, it would be immoral to ask people whose very lives are at risk to stay in Haiti, a Haiti which I am compelled to describe as a house on fire. Democracy must be restored to Haiti. After the restoration of democracy, there will be reconciliation.

MR. LEHRER: French troops in Rwanda completed their first humanitarian mission today. Soldiers evacuated 35 nuns and eight orphans who had been hiding in a convent in Western Rwanda for the past 10 weeks. The nuns were from Europe, the United States, and Rwanda. They said they had been terrorized continuously by government militias. All of the evacuees were brought to Zaire.

MR. MAC NEIL: President and Mrs. Clinton have set up a fund to help pay their legal bills. It'll be managed by a Washington law firm. Contributions will be accepted from individuals with a $1,000 limit. The Clintons have hired lawyers to deal with the investigation of the so-called Whitewater land deal and sexual harassment charges brought against Mr. Clinton by a former Arkansas state employee. Their legal bills are expected to be over a million dollars. O.J. Simpson appeared in court today for another hearing in the murder case against him. He is accused of killing his ex- wife and her friend. He's pleaded "not guilty" to the charges. A Los Angeles judge today ordered Simpson to give samples of his hair for comparison with strands of hair found in a knit cap at the murder scene. Prosecutors requested the samples, and Simpson's lawyer said he had no objections.

MR. LEHRER: In economic news today, sales of new homes surged 4.2 percent in May. The Departments of Commerce and Housing & Urban Development reported all regions of the country posted gains except the Midwest. The Conference Board said in its monthly survey that consumer confidence rose sharply in June. The Board is a business research group. The U.S. dollar fell almost 1/2 yen against the Japanese currency in U.S. foreign exchange trading today, but it closed 1/2 yen higher overnight in Tokyo.

MR. MAC NEIL: The growing incidence of skin cancer has led the Weather Service to add a sun rating to its daily forecasts. The index will measure the strength of the sun's ultraviolet rays. The danger can vary based on such things as the thickness of the ozone layer or dust and haze in the atmosphere. Most of the ratings will be on a scale of one to ten, with ten indicating the most dangerous conditions. Ratings will go as high as 15 in communities that get more sun. Pulitzer Prize winning drama critic William Henry has died. Henry was a senior writer for Time Magazine and the author of several books on culture and entertainment. He also filed a report on the gay rights movement for this program which was broadcast last night. A spokesman for Time Magazine said Henry suffered a fatal heart attack in London today. He was 44 years old.

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the crime bill in Congress, illegal immigrants in California, an African view of Rwanda, and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay. FOCUS - UNEQUAL JUSTICE?

MR. MAC NEIL: The death penalty and charges of racial bias are our lead tonight. It's an issue holding up progress on crime legislation which has passed both the House and Senate. Earlier this afternoon, Margaret Warner spoke to four members of Congress on the subject.

MS. WARNER: Should defendants who are given the death penalty be allowed to challenge that sentence by alleging a pattern of racial bias? This issue has stalled congressional negotiations designed to reconcile competing House and Senate versions of the long awaited crime bill. The House version of the crime bill includes the so-called Racial Justice Act. It would let a defendant challenge a death sentence by using statistics to show that local prosecutors, judges, and juries were racially biased in capital cases. But the Senate has flatly rejected such language. We take up the debate now with Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, a Democrat from Illinois; Sen. Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah; Congressman John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan; and Congressman Bill McCollum, Republican of Florida. Congressman Conyers, let's start with you by looking at the underlying premise of this whole debate which is, of course, the allegation of racial bias in capital cases. Is race a factor in the way the death penalty is meted out in this country?

REP. CONYERS: Well, it's one of the most embarrassing parts of our criminal justice system, there's no question about it. There have been any number of studies, private, the General Accounting Office, and our own calculations from the drug kingpin death penalty provision in 1988 where the last 10 people executed have been African-Americans. So we start off with the premise that there has to be some correction to this very embarrassing circumstance, and Justice Powell and Justice Blackmun both on this -- formally on the Supreme Court -- have given us an impetus because they've revised their own position on this subject.

MS. WARNER: Well, Congressman McCollum, do you agree? Florida, of course, is one of the states that have been singled out in these studies for showing some kind of racial bias, at least according to the race of the victim.

REP. McCOLLUM: Well, I don't agree that there's racial discrimination in any widespread sense in the capital punishment cases in this country. I do think that there is technically under the language of the so-called Racial Justice Act racial disparity, and that's something that would be found in most jurisdictions where the death penalty is given. And I think that's fairly easily seen or explained if you just look at the simple statistic that about half of those who are murder victims in this country are black, about 94 percent of those who murder blacks are also black, and yet, the population in this country that's black is only 12 percent of the overall population. There is no question that we do have racial disparity in that broad range sense, but that doesn't mean it's racial discrimination. Each case in our American system of justice is judged on an individual basis based upon the aggravating factors of those particular cases as to whether somebody gets the death penalty or not.

MS. WARNER: Well, Congressman, let me ask you about one county in Florida in which blacks made up to 40 percent of murder victims, yet, over the course of, I think, 13 years, every capital case, i.e., the only cases in which death penalty was meted out, involved white victims. How can you explain that as non-discriminatory?

REP. McCOLLUM: Well, I don't know the circumstances of each case. I don't think you can say by the basis of statistics that discrimination occurred in any given case or any given jurisdiction. I think you have to look at the cases, themselves, the individual cases. And I don't, frankly, think there have been that many death penalty cases given out in any one county or any one jurisdiction in my state or any other states since the Supreme Court in 1972 reinstated the death penalty. So the numbers are fairly small that you're quoting from, those statistics. I frankly just don't believe that statistics prove discrimination.

MS. WARNER: Sen. Moseley-Braun, where do you come down on this? SEN. MOSELEY-BRAUN: Well, I think the whole purpose of the Racial Justice Act is to make certain that there is fairness in the imposition of the death penalty, that people who are sentenced to death are so sentenced not based on who they are but based on what they've done.

MS. WARNER: But, I mean, in the past -- if I could just direct your attention to this one question, is there evidence, do you have evidence that so far that is not happening?

SEN. MOSELEY-BRAUN: Well, the General Accounting Office report to which Congressman Conyers referred stated very clearly that there was a pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and imposition of the death penalty. The Supreme Court in McCloskey versus Kemp made it clear that there was a problem but thought that it ought to be addressed by congressional action. That's why we have a Racial Justice Act. That's the impetus for this legislative initiative.

MS. WARNER: Sen. Hatch, where do you come down on this?

SEN. HATCH: Well, statistics standing alone should not prove whether a person is prejudiced or whether they've discriminated or not. Statistics coupled with proof of intent to discriminate is another thing. Our prosecutors are charged with the responsibility of making charges against people to not discriminate. They have to pick racially neutral grand juries. They have to make sure that racially neutral jurors are picked for any given case, and then the jurors, themselves, have to under current law, all of this is under current law, have to make it very clear that they are not acting in any degree with racial prejudice, and they may be asked that question. So, you know, if you go to a pure system of statistics to determine whether the death penalty can be imposed, it just simply means that it will never be imposed ever.

SEN. MOSELEY-BRAUN: The problem here is that the present law gives people who are suing for housing discrimination more legal tools to show racial discrimination in their case than we allow for people who are sentenced to the death penalty. All the Racial Justice Act says is that with regard to a specific case an individual can show in that jurisdiction in cases like his or her case race plays a role. That's all it does. It doesn't throw out the death penalty. It doesn't throw out all the cases that are currently pending. It doesn't give someone an escape hatch and let them go free once they've been sentenced, but it does give them an important legal redress where racial discrimination can clearly be shown in a specific case under very controlled circumstances.

REP. McCOLLUM: I beg to differ from that.

SEN. HATCH: Me too.

REP. McCOLLUM: In the sense, Senator, I think what you've got to see in this is the fact that the way this Racial Justice Act's been worded, and it's why the Attorneys General Association just passed a resolution four days ago saying that they don't want anything to do with this, it effectively ends capital punishment representing all 50 states, by the way, is that in the language of this Act, or this so-called Act, there is going to be an inference of discrimination that taints the entire jurisdiction once it's raised, and because there is disparity, not discrimination but disparity in virtually every jurisdiction, it will be tainted, and then the burden to overcome that is so heavy on prosecutors they're not going to be able to prove that negative. They cannot bring in normal evidence of verbal evidence. It's the way it's written that's so bad.

MS. WARNER: Let me ask Congressman Conyers, who is one of the authors of this Racial Justice Act. Describe exactly how it would work. Let's take a typical case or a case in which both the defendant and the victim were black and if the defendant were convicted of murder and sentenced to death, how could he go about challenging? What would he have to prove to get that set aside?

REP. CONYERS: It's a very simple procedure, and it came out of the McCluskey Supreme Court case that instructed us that the best way to handle these questions of potential racial bias is that we have a mechanism, and the statistics don't prove anything. The statistics give the defendant an opportunity to raise the provision to ask the judge to consider that there may be sufficient bias in this jurisdiction that, that a rebuttable presumption is created, and so contrary to my friends who don't like the provision, it doesn't -- the judge, the sitting judge is making the decision, and so it's a very simple procedure. It does not re-try any facts. No witnesses are called, and it would apply only to a number of jurisdictions and not many at that. So it's - - it's the simplest mechanism crafted by members of the American Bar Association, the NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union, members of Congress, and myself, and our staffs, and we're still working on the provisions. The language isn't what we're worried about. We're concerned about addressing a matter of historical importance. It almost is embarrassing to hear us arguing whether or not there's discrimination in the imposition of the death penalty in 1994.

MS. WARNER: So, Congressman, are you saying then that past evidence of how similar cases were treated in a given jurisdiction would be useful or would be presented to the judge but they wouldn't necessarily be controlling?

REP. CONYERS: Not at all. We changed the clear and convincing test, the evidentiary test, to a rebuttable presumption which makes it easier for the prosecutor to merely show that there is no basis for this claim, and the judge moves on from there.

SEN. HATCH: Well, the problem --

MS. WARNER: Go ahead, Sen. Hatch.

SEN. HATCH: Well, let's be honest about it. The Racial Justice Act was defeated in the Senate 58 to 41. The House has directed its conferees to not put it in the bill. The reason is, is because if you move to a statistical analysis on whether or not the death penalty should be imposed, you can do that across an endless array of manipulable statistics that, as Congressman Conyers says, places the burden of proof on the prosecutor to disprove, and you get away from really looking at what really has to be looked at, and that is the nature of the crime, how heinous the crime was, whether that crime deserves to have that person have to suffer the ultimate penalty, and frankly, those ought to be the considerations that are considered, not whether you can prove a statistical disparity that you will be able to prove in every jurisdiction, in every case to the point where all we'll have is an endless number of appeals costing the taxpayers billions of dollars, and they'll all be frivolous based upon a statistical analysis that can always be conjured up by good statisticians.

SEN. MOSELEY-BRAUN: But I think the point --

MS. WARNER: Sen. Moseley-Braun, yes, go ahead.

SEN. MOSELEY-BRAUN: I think the point has to be made that we allow for the use of statistics in housing discrimination cases. We allow for the use of statistics in employment discrimination cases. If someone has been sentenced to death, it seems to me only minimal fairness to say we're going to give this person an opportunity to show, and the burden to show, that this sentence was based on what he or she did and not who he or she is. And that is what this Act is about. We want to make certain that the people who support the death penalty can do so in full confidence, that it is not being applied unfairly, that there is no discrimination in the imposition of the death penalty, and that it is fair. And that, it seems to me, is at the very core of our system of jurisprudence, that it's fair, and that everyone is treated equally before the law.

REP. McCOLLUM: Well, Sen. Braun, that's why I offered the alternative Equal Justice Act over in the House that passed the House three years ago in the Congress preceding this one. It tried to lay out statutorily all kinds of ways we could protect against discrimination but not use the statistics that really are not suitable for criminal justice in the same way they may be for civil actions that are involving something entirely different. And I don't think it's fair to say, as Congressman Conyers did, that this is just the opinion that Sen. Hatch and I have or some other colleagues. Seven thousand district attorneys as a part of the National District Attorneys Association agree with our view on this that it will effectively end the death penalty in other jurisdictions maybe where there hasn't been one yet. You might be able to use a quota system for murderers to get there, but it's going to end it. And it's the same thing that, as I said earlier, the attorneys generals of all 50 states, including the majority of them being Democrat, happen to agree will effectively end this. They agree with our technical concerns over this.

MS. WARNER: Let me ask Congressman Conyers now --

SEN. MOSELEY-BRAUN: I think you have to be clear --

MS. WARNER: Excuse me. Congressman Conyers, give us your assessment before we go of now the politics of this and where it stands, because this Conference Committee, the whole crime bill is being held up because of this. The compromise you're proposing do you think you can get enough votes in the House, and where do those votes come from for this?

REP. CONYERS: Well, we're more concerned about our friends in the Senate than we are in the House, but scare tactics, I want to remind my friend, Mr. McCollum, whose state and perhaps his area would be affected by this, isn't going to really carry the day here. We're, we're looking for simple justice, and what we're trying to do -- you know, we're trying to resolve this problem. We're not trying to slug it out. We're trying to bring light on it, and institutional resistance from people in the criminal justice system is always expected. Civil rights laws were resisted mightily by the same kind of people in law enforcement that were supposed to be enforcing them. That's --that's how we make progress. And that's what we're trying to do, is look for some common ground. We're willing to rearrange the language. We're not even worried about statistics. All we want is what the Supreme Court said in 1986 in McCluskey is that you have to have some methods of testing racial disparity.

REP. McCOLLUM: Then join me in my Equal Justice Act, Johnny, and way from this other program.

REP. CONYERS: The House just passed my amendment.

REP. McCOLLUM: Yeah, but they just came along with a motion instructing, and said, hey, we've thought about it now and listened to the district attorneys and the AG's and we don't think that's such a hot idea.

MS. WARNER: Let me just ask Congressman McCollum, just to finish up here, what's going to happen in the House. Can you imagine a compromise with Congressman Conyers that you both could vote for?

REP. McCOLLUM: Oh, I think that there could be if he came along with something such as the anti-discrimination language at every stage that I tried to codify, but the problem is that I couldn't agree, nor do I believe that the DA's or the attorney generals would agree to any form of statistics, including the use of the so- called pattern and practice language which has been discussed in the back rooms recently. In fact, the attorney generals resolution passed in their summer summit back four days ago specifically says that they couldn't accept that either. That's the same type of problem, because it's based upon a statistical system.

MS. WARNER: And Congressman Conyers, would you drop -- you are a conferee -- would you drop entirely all reference to statistics in the interest of getting some kind of a compromise here?

REP. CONYERS: No. I've been in discussion with the NAACP. The Congressional Black Caucus is taking this matter with extreme seriousness. Don Edwards, the chairman of the civil liberties and constitutional committee is working with us. We're working around the clock to expedite this issue, but, remember, assault weapons and the crime prevention package are also problems in this conference. I don't want it to be mistakenly suggested that the only thing that's holding up the conference is the racial justice provision.

MS. WARNER: Well, let's turn to the Senate. Senator Hatch, do you see any, any kind of prospect for compromise here, anything that you could vote for? The Senate, of course, voted what, 58 to 41 last week against any Racial Justice Act. But do you see any common ground here?

SEN. HATCH: Well, the Senate is consistently on record, almost all the prosecutors in this country, all the attorneys general, all of the law enforcement officials, and the victims' groups are all against this provision. We have a provision in the Senate Bill that prohibits discrimination. I might add the 14th amendment of the Constitution, the 5th amendment of the Constitution, the due process clause and the equal protection clause also forbid that racial discrimination. And I'm willing to sit down and work with John Conyers and Carol Moseley-Braun. There should be no discrimination in criminal matters. There should be no discrimination in assessing death penalties, but we can't get away from looking at the nature of the crime or what the person has done. And that's what this tends to pull us away from. It gets us into incessant, endless appeals.

MS. WARNER: And Sen. Moseley-Braun, do you see any room for compromise here?

SEN. MOSELEY-BRAUN: Well, I hope there is room for compromise, but I hope, more to the point, that there is recognition that there is an issue here of fundamental fairness. It's not just a matter of the technicalities surrounding this bill. I supported the crime bill. I'm a former prosecutor myself. I come out of a law enforcement background. But it seems to me that the single most important thing that those of us who care about law enforcement have to promote is the notion that it is fair, that people are treated equally based on what they do, and not on who they are, that rich, poor, or otherwise, we are made to be responsible for our actions, not responsible for who we are, where we live, or how wealthy we are, or what our race is. And that is the fundamental issue of fairness to which Rep. Conyers refers that guides me in promoting the Racial Justice Act here on the Senate side and that I think our members responded to, and I hope that we can work this out and pass the crime bill.

MS. WARNER: Well, I'm afraid we're out of time. Senators, Congressmen, thanks very much.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, California's illegal immigrants, a Rwanda update, and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay. SECOND LOOK - PRICE OF ENTRY

MR. MAC NEIL: Next tonight, who pays for illegal immigration? Some states have taken that issue to court, claiming that the federal government should pick up the tab for such things as the medical costs incurred by illegal immigrants. And last week, governors from several states took their case to Capitol Hill. Last fall, Correspondent Jeffrey Kaye of public station KCET-Los Angeles filed a report on the situation in California which we now revisit.

MR. KAYE: Dusk at the U.S.-Mexico border just south of San Diego. Border patrol agents hunt their quarry, would-be immigrants sneaking into the country by car and by foot. The border patrol estimates that each year at least 1/2 million people enter the country here illegally. In Los Angeles County illegal immigrants and their citizen children are believed to number just under 1 million. At a time when California's underfunded resources are spread thin, political pressure to curtail immigration is mounting, so politicians, conservative and liberal, Republicans and Democrats, are proposing "get tough" measures and describing the influx of illegal immigrants in calamitous terms.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, [D] California: Competition, fear, and anxiety are the inevitable result when the numbers of newcomers are great, and the opportunities are few.

GOV. PETE WILSON, [R] California: California and most other popular states are under siege by illegal immigration. It's time to do something about it. In fact, it's time to end it.

MR. KAYE: California's Republican Governor, Pete Wilson, wants to cut off social services to illegal immigrants and to deny citizenship to their U.S.-born children. After he announced his proposals in August, his poll ratings rose. Wilson fines support among members of such groups as the Federation for American Immigration Reform -- that's a national organization which contends that immigrants are a drain on America's resources.

BARBARA EKHOLM: They think they can come to Los Angeles, they can come to the United States, that we're rich, that the amount of money in the United States is infinite, that they can cheat on their welfare, that they can get any kind of medical care that they need, and it will go on forever.

TONY CLARKE: Just in Los Angeles County alone it's $1.5 billion, the cost of illegal immigration. Now with that kind of money we're talking about, that's going to affect every single aspect of government services within the county of Los Angeles.

DANIELLE ELLIOT: We just have too many people coming in too quickly, and how it affects us personally, here in the inner city when I call the police for a particular problem, they don't arrive unless I'm dead.

STEVEN GOURLEY: As long as you have unending flows of immigrants, you'll have low paying jobs. The problem is the jobs will never get higher paying as long as there's cheap labor to take the job.

MR. KAYE: Similar concerns in the California legislature this year resulted in the largest number of bills ever introduced on the subject of immigration. Most of the more two dozens measures propose to deny illegal immigrants services such as education and Medicaid. Assemblyman Richard Mountjoy has led the charge. Mountjoy is a Republican but like politicians from both parties, Mountjoy insists his proposals to clamp down on illegal immigration are not anti-immigrant.

REP. RICHARD MOUNTJOY, [R] California: Legal immigration in the United States is the very strength of this country, has been forever. We draw from the best of all nations. What my bills are is anti-illegal immigration to the United States. Those that enter the country illegally, flood the country, cannot work legally in the country, make a drain on the tax dollars, especially of the state of California.

MR. KAYE: Mountjoy has come under attack for his often blunt language.

REP. RICHARD MOUNTJOY: When you have indiscriminate floods of illegals that crossed our borders, we will lose this great country.

SPOKESPERSON: You continue to spew the ridiculous and ignorant and hate-filled commentary.

REP. RICHARD MOUNTJOY: These are not hate those members; these are just good logic.

MR. KAYE: But Mountjoy's good logic has eluded members of California's Latino legislative caucus. Assemblyman Richard Polanco, the caucus chair, says the subject of illegal immigration is often tinged with racial prejudice.

REP. RICHARD POLANCO, [D] California: We carved out this particular issue as an area that is very important to us.

MR. KAYE: Why?

REP. RICHARD POLANCO: Very important because of the real potential harm and the real opportunity for the knee jerk and prejudice and racism, and it's out there. We have received on this issue more ugly letters than I have ever seen, ever seen on any issue.

MR. KAYE: For Mountjoy, illegal immigration is not a racial issue, it's an economic one.

REP. RICHARD MOUNTJOY: The cost in the state of California is estimated by some of the, the people that do the analysis as $3 billion currently to support those that are illegally here in the - - in California.

MR. KAYE: That's $3 billion a year, according to Mountjoy. There are conflicting studies on the net costs of immigration. One report estimated that 2/3 of all babies born in LA County's public hospitals are born to illegal immigrants. Another calculated health care costs to the county for illegal immigrants and their children, the estimated total, $200 million a year. The study suggested that the portable aliens cost LA County's criminal justice system more than 75 million a year. 41 percent of the students in LA's public schools speak little or no English. Educating the children of illegal immigrants is estimated to cost over a billion a year. But immigrants' advocates say the tax contributions of illegal immigrants more than make up for their social costs. Kevin De Leon contends that arguments about taxes often ignore another issue, the economy's reliance on immigrant labor.

KEVIN DE LEON, One Stop Immigration Center: They want to have the cheap labor in California but also at the same time, they don't want them in California.

MR. KAYE: De Leon is regional director of the LA-based One Stop Immigration & Educational Center. The center offers English and citizenship classes and lobbies for immigrants' rights.

KEVIN DE LEON: The economic infrastructure in California, that being the manufacturing industry, that being the agricultural industry, that being domestic labor, that being gardeners and construction, that being service trade industry, hotels, and restaurants, and posh and chic places throughout the state, those local economies are dependent on immigrant labor.

CRISTINA VAZQUEZ, International Ladies Garment Workers Union: When they need people to pick, you know, the vegetables and the fruit, you know, they open the borders, they look on the other side. When they need workers to work in sweat shops, when they need people to be exploited, they look on the other side.

MR. KAYE: Cristina Vazquez, a director of the Garment Workers Union in Los Angeles, often represents illegal immigrants.

CRISTINA VAZQUEZ: Undocumented workers, immigrant workers, are not the problem. They're using that as a scapegoat that is not the problem.

MR. KAYE: What is the problem?

CRISTINA VAZQUEZ: The problem is the country is going through an economic crisis.

MR. KAYE: So how much is owed here altogether? Three twenty-five.

MR. KAYE: On this day, Vazquez is trying to collect back pay for Teodoro Arzola, an illegal immigrant fired from his sewing job at this small factory. Vazquez takes Arzola's claim of a week's wages, $325, to the man who hired him. Cristina Vazquez and others estimate that about half the workers in LA's 100,000 strong garment industry are illegal immigrants. Many work for less than minimum wage.

CRISTINA VAZQUEZ: The garment industry, the industry that I represent, will be devastated if we don't have immigrant workers, if we don't have these workers working in the sweat shops. They are, you know, they're part of the economic process. They contribute. They pay their taxes. They pay rent. You know, they shop in the supermarkets.

MAN: I want to pay, I want to pay this one, okay? Count Monday. Please, senor.

MR. KAYE: After negotiations with the garment contractor, Arzola emerged money in hand. The first thing he did was pay off a debt to the operator of the lunch truck that stops by the factory. Later in the day, Arzola went shopping with his three-year-old son, Christopher. Arzola is a former tile maker from southern Mexico. He's been in the United States since 1985. Arzola and his common law wife, Rosario Martinez, watch their money carefully. Martinez, a former farm worker, also came here from Mexico in 1985, but unlike Arzola, she's a legal resident thanks to a provision of the 1986 Immigration Act which allowed farm workers to seek amnesty. The couple has four children, all U.S. citizens, all born in local hospitals at taxpayers' expense. Their oldest, six-year-old Angelica, attends public elementary school. She speaks no English.

MR. KAYE: What do you say to those people, politicians now, who are saying, we need to close the border?

TEODORO ARZOLA: [speaking through interpreter] I don't think that's right. We all come here to work. We don't come here to steal, and we all pay our taxes. But when tax time comes around, we don't file returns, so we don't get any money back. The government keeps it.

ROSARIO MARTINEZ: [speaking through interpreter] We don't take anything away from anyone. We just come here to work.

MR. KAYE: De Leon sees the immigration debate largely as a legal issue. He says that if labor laws were better enforced in industries which employ illegal immigrants in the fields and in garment factories, for example, employers would be less able to exploit a vulnerable work force.

KEVIN DE LEON: Immigrants are taking the jobs that nobody wants, the jobs that nobody cares to work for, the jobs where people are usually exploited, paid the lowest wages imaginable, no health, no medical benefits.

MR. KAYE: The ongoing debate has produced a rash of proposals. Some state politicians have suggested seizing the assets of employers who hire illegal immigrants. Recently, California's two Democratic Senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, summoned U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to the border to call attention to the immigration issue. Boxer wants the National Guard to patrol the border. Feinstein proposes a $1 border crossing fee to pay for more border patrol agents. Immigrants' advocates, on the other hand, worry about militarizing the border. In the end, all sides do agree on one long-term solution, since immigrants come for jobs, improved economies in their home nations would be the most effective deterrent to continuing immigration here. UPDATE - RWANDA

MR. LEHRER: Now an update on the tragedy in the African nation of Rwanda. Hundreds of thousands of people have died there in the last two months. The deaths prompted France to send 2500 troops to protect civilian lives. Our update begins with a report from Southern Rwanda by Mark Austin of Independent Television News on what those troops are seeing.

MARK AUSTIN: Flying into Rwanda, French troops continued their humanitarian mission in this war ravaged country. The French are keeping well to the western side of Rwanda, away from the battle front and from the rebels who threaten confrontation. Its contact, the French believe, they must do everything to avoid, but we drove through government roadblocks towards the front line today and here found confirmation of the real humanitarian disaster unfolding inside Rwanda. An estimated 250,000 Hutu refugees camped miserably on forest covered hillside just 20 miles from the fighting. These are the refugees the relief agencies not only haven't reached with aid but until now haven't been able to find. Many are severely malnourished, some close to starvation. Malaria is rife. There's no clean water supply and precious little food. Dozens have already failed to survive the desperate flight from war. It's the job of French military chiefs to decide how deep into Rwanda to take their humanitarian efforts. But these people are further evidence, if it were ever needed, of the scale of the task facing those seeking to help this suffering country. NEWSMAKER - AFRICA WATCH

MR. LEHRER: Now an African perspective on the tragedy in Rwanda. It comes from the secretary general of the Organization of African Unity, Salim Salim. He is a former prime minister of Tanzania who is in Washington for a White House conference on Africa. Charlayne Hunter-Gault talked with him this morning.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Secretary General, thank you for joining us.

SALIM SALIM, Organization of African Unity: Nice to be here.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The OAU-brokered cease-fire in Rwanda doesn't appear to be holding. What is your assessment of the situation now and of the prospects in Rwanda?

SALIM SALIM: Well, the situation is pretty grim right now, particularly considering the massacres and organized killings that have taken place since the tragic death of the president of Rwanda and the president of Burundi in a plane crash. Sothe most immediate area of concern on the part of Africa right now and I think on the international community is how to stop the killings, how to provide humanitarian assistance for those who need it, and also to work for an immediate cessation of hostilities. At the OAU summit in Tunis, efforts, considerable efforts, were made with the objective of ending the hostilities and also the objective of reaffirming Africa's preparedness to make its own contribution to the conclusion of that tragedy.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But what is the situation now? I mean, are you monitoring these -- is there a cease-fire in effect?

SALIM SALIM: No, unfortunately, there has not been a cease-fire in place, and throughout the negotiations -- and let me say the Rwanda saga has been a matter of real agony for all of us, particularly as Africans -- but also been one area where African countries, and particularly the Organization of African Unity, has expended considerable capital in terms of trying to promote a negotiated settlement.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But what's happening? Are they talking to you, or are they just running amuck, or what?

SALIM SALIM: Well, we are talking to each of the parties. We are talking to the internal government separately. We are talking to the Burundi's Patriotic Front separately, but it has not been possible until now to get the two parties to meet together with the Burundi's Patriotic Front insisting that they cannot sit down and discuss with the interim government because the interim government they accuse of being responsible for some of the killings, of most of the killings that have taken place there. But --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The interim government being Hutu-led?

SALIM SALIM: The Hutu-dominated interim government.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: This conflict is seen through the prism of tribal conflict. Is that how the OAU and other Africans see it?

SALIM SALIM: Naturally, I think, yes, there is an ethnic dimension to the conflict. But clearly, if you follow what has happened in Rwanda since the 6th of April, there are a number of people who have been killed simply because of the political views. Mind you, on the first day, literally the first day after the death of President Herbamana, among the people who were killed was the prime minister, the lady prime minister, and she is not a Tutsi. She's a Hutu. A number of other prominent Hutu politicians were also killed in the process. So the conflict is both political and with ethnic implications.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Does that complicate the search for a solution?

SALIM SALIM: It certainly does. It certainly does. Any time ethnic hatreds and ethnic prejudices whipped up in any given country, of course, it makes it more, all that more difficult in terms of trying to find a solution. But clearly, in the final analysis, the solution to Burundi's crisis lies in promoting national reconciliation. There cannot be a military solution to the crisis, and that is why it is also gratifying, despite all that is going on, both parties seem to agree that the agreement which was signed in Arusha last year providing for the broadly best government the framework which they have cooperated on in the final analysis.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, at the moment, the only armed intervention has been that of the French. The French have put in 2500 troops. How does the OAU view that intervention?

SALIM SALIM: Well, we -- our position in the OAU has always been to say that given the grave humanitarian tragedy that was unfolding in Rwanda, there was a need for decisive international action. Our position has always been to prefer that the United Nations should move in there, and not only have we talked about the United Nations moving in, but we have worked very strongly to assure that the United Nations assumes its responsibility in Rwanda. As you recall, at the very time of the crisis, there was this unfortunate decision by the Security Council which led to the withdrawal of United Nations forces in Rwanda.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Supported by the United States.

SALIM SALIM: At that point, yes, that decision was supported by the United States, and we considered that position extremely unfortunate and untimely. Consequently, the Security Council revised itself and took a decision to deploy 5,500 troops. And the issue was where are these troops going to come from, and we, we were told, well, if African countries can only provide the troops, we'll have the necessary logistical support. And I want to put it to you that one month and a half ago, the African countries have already made troops available. We have almost 5,000 troops contributed by countries like Ghana, like Senegal, like Zimbabwe, like Zambia, like Ethiopia, like Mali, like Congo, like Nigeria. The troops are ready to go, but the stumbling block has been the lack of the necessary logistical means.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Why do think that is? Because the entire international community has been very slow to respond to this. I mean, even Boutros-Ghali, the secretary general of the U.N., has condemned the slowness of the action even as the U.N. has been implicated in this paralysis.

SALIM SALIM: Well, that is -- that's a central issue, and really it raises a number of very, very difficult questions for us. I mean, it has always been stated that African countries should assume greater responsibility for conflict resolution. And we accept that. And I think our organization accepts that, and African leaders accept that. But issues like that of Rwanda are issues which concern not only Africa but also concern the international community. We would have expected really that given Africa's preparedness to play a spot that will have also the immediate response on the part of the international community to assist. Now, I'm sorry to say that the response has been very slow. It is very difficult to understand that one and a half months later we still have not been able to have the necessary logistical support to put the troops there.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What is it that you're asking that they haven't delivered?

SALIM SALIM: Well, first let me say that it is not we who are asking. It is the United Nations which is asking, because what we have said is that these are peacekeepers who have been -- who have to be provided with the necessary wherewithal to enable them to function effectively, given the terrain in Rwanda.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Tanks, things like that?

SALIM SALIM: Not really tanks. They have been talking things like armored personnel carriers and other equipment, communication equipment, helicopters, and so on. The list is the United Nations, but what I'm saying that it is sad that despite the appeals made by the secretary general of the United Nations, despite my own appeals as secretary general of the Organization of African Unity, despite the appeals made by the heads of states of Africa, which has again reaffirmed Africa's preparedness to play its own contribution, the reaction on the part of the international community has been slow. As I have said here to the American administration officials, I think frankly the most urgent thing right now for those who care about finding a lasting solution for the Rwanda crisis is for the countries in a position to do so, countries like the United States, itself, countries like France, to provide the necessary logistical support to help the troops in the field.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Boutros-Ghali has called this genocide, and, of course, the U.S. which initially refused to say that it was genocide wholesale has reversed itself. Why is it, do you think, these logistical things are holding up efforts to prevent the slaughter of thousands and thousands of people?

SALIM SALIM: Well, you know, the mistakes that have been made go back to the very beginning of the crisis, and I will say really I would be the last person to say that the responsibility lies only with the international community. The responsibility lies in all of us, including as African countries. I wish the African, Africans were themselves in a position to act quickly and decisively in a situation of this nature. But having said that, it is very difficult to explain to the ordinary people and certainly to an ordinary African why in the case of Rwanda there has been all these incidents happening, why is it in the midst of a crisis the United Nations Security Council should have taken the decision to withdraw the troops, at a time when the troops are very much needed there? Why is it that after the appeals that were made to us that all that was needed for Africa to provide troops and then the support would be forthcoming that at a time when African countries, despite their own economic and other difficulties, were prepared to make those contributions, were prepared to make those sacrifices, that type of support hasn't been forthcoming?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But do you have any answers to that question? I mean, what is your best guess as to why this is?

SALIM SALIM: Well, I think, frankly, I don't think that it will be appropriate to say that this is what the situation, the malaise that has been experienced in the case of Rwanda is purely uniquely a Rwanda experience. I think if you talk with the secretary general of the United Nations, he would tell you that this is part of the problem he's having in trying to assemble a peacekeeping force any time they have a crisis in the world.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you agree that this is a genocide?

SALIM SALIM: Certainly. I mean, there's no other way to describe the systematic killings of people which has gone on in Rwanda. The estimates vary. Some talk about 200,000. Some talk about 300,000. Some talk about 1/2 million. But the numbers, you know, when you talk in terms of one and a half months having almost half a million people being killed, it's nothing short of genocide.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Now, France insists that its force is only going to be in there for two months, at which time it hopes that the African force will be able to take over. What's your best guess?

SALIM SALIM: I think it's important to give the French government at least the benefit of doubt under the circumstances, and as far as I'm concerned, for as long as the French mission continues to be a humanitarian mission, for as long as they live up to the mandate of the Security Council, the most important thing now is not to judge the French mission but what is the international community doing about the deployment of the African forces there.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But the U.N. is saying even now that it will be three months before it can put the machinery in place to support these African troops. What is going to happen in that three months interregnum?

SALIM SALIM: Well, first, I don't believe that really you need three months to put the troops in there.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But that's what they said.

SALIM SALIM: I think they are saying that on the basis of the type of response they have been having.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But will happen if it takes three months to get that deployment? What do you see happening in that three-month period?

SALIM SALIM: Well, clearly, if the -- if the deployment of the U.N. force is inordinately delayed, then you'll have more killings in the country, but also you've made the peace process that much more complicated with serious implications not only Rwanda but also for, for the region, and particularly I worry also about the possible implications for the neighboring country, Burundi.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Increasingly, the United States, particularly in the wake of the Cold War, has talked about national interest, U.S. national interest, as a precondition for its involvement, especially with troops on the ground, in conflicts around the world. Do you think that that's the test of U.S. involvement, and if that's the case, how is that going to affect U.S. support for operations like the ones we've been describing in Africa? I mean, does the U.S. have any national interest in Africa anymore?

SALIM SALIM: Well, first, I accept the premise that the United States must always take into account its national interest. It's a question of how one defines those national interests. The United States is not a Tanzania or a Rwanda or a Burundi or a Nigeria. The United States is a world power. When it comes to the question of Africa, I would say that it is in the -- it is also in the interest of the United States to see it, to support the efforts towards peace and stability in the continent. Any time there's a crisis, any time there is a -- there's a carnage in the world, the implications for that are very, very serious not only for the countries concerned but also for the continent and for humanity as a whole. So besides the fact that the United States by virtue of its very history, by virtue of the long historical and cultural ties that it has with Africa, has certainly interest in Africa. I would say also the fact that the continuation of areas of instability and insecurity in the continent, it vastly affects the long-term interest of this country.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Mr. Secretary-General, thank you. ESSAY - WISHFUL THINKING

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, essayist Anne Taylor considers privacy.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: Looking at the pictures of Jackie Kennedy - - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, I should say -- which continue to surround us even as her death recedes into the past, I keep thinking about privacy, our love-hate relationship with it. Now that she lies beside her first husband she has returned in our minds to her long-ago incarnation as our national widow if, indeed, she ever truly left it, having taken with her all of her secrets. When JFK died, she withdraw behind that widow's veil and went on with her life even as revelations of her late husband's wanderings and shortcomings became the everyday stuff of our tabloid world. What Jackie Kennedy thought of those or of him she did not say in her lifetime, and after her death was soundly celebrated for her uncharacteristic silence in a world gone confessional mad, a world of talk shows gone mad, where Americans famous and not famous line up to tattle on themselves as well as others. Posterity through publicity but not for Jackie and not for Hillary.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Well, let me thank all of you for coming.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: Hillary too in the constant glare of media peepery is trying to maintain her dignity, her zone of privacy, as she's called it. It is a far tougher task these days than it was in the long ago days of Camelot, far tougher, as Mrs. Clinton, herself, could no doubt testify. Granted, there is a world of difference, a generation of difference between Jackie, who wielded what power she had privately, and Hillary, who has sought to wield power very publicly. But, increasingly, we want the intimate details of everybody's life, certainly the President, scrounging for them, in effect, letting the media take the rap for our own insatiable appetites, a Jennifer here, a Paula there, yes, please, give us more, give us another one. All this, I think, this semi- disgust with what we become, was tied up in the pronounced mourning for Jacqueline Kennedy. Standing at her grave we wanted to go back, back to the pre-assassination, pre-Vietnam, pre-Watergate, pre- publicity world. We wanted to regain our dignity, our privacy, our discretion, like Jackie. But do we really want to go back? Do we really want to rewind the reel? A question I ask particularly of women, particularly the women of my assault-the-barricades generation. So many of us were unexpectedly moved by the loss of Jackie and in our sadness, there was, I think, a huge dose of ambivalence, on the one hand, a desire to go back to the world of our mothers, but on the other a recognition that we never could and didn't really want to. It is no wonder that Hillary Rodham Clinton felt close to Jackson. Hillary has become a metaphor for us women who want that zone of privacy even as we strive for ever more public power and position and know deep down we gave it up a long time ago. After all, we have not exactly been discreet but emphatically the opposite. We have been noisy and personal and public. We have flooded the air waves with our private grief and personal anger. We have been pushy and at times pornographic. In short, in our effort to achieve some equality with the men in our lives, we have been profoundly and adamantly un-Jackie-like. We have share our secrets and shared our shame along with the other outsiders, the other minorities, gays and lesbians, African- Americans and Latinos, one, big burbling cauldron of intimate rage that has filled the book racks, magazine racks, and air waves in the decades between the day John F. Kennedy was buried and the day his still young widow took her place beside him. A revolution in privacy or non-privacy, that's what had taken place. And for all the nice words about Jackie's dignity, for all our reservations about the verbal fest that our culture has become, I don't think we would go back even if we could. And I think within our tears for her there was that grudging and rueful recognition. I'm Anne Taylor Fleming. RECAP

MR. MAC NEIL: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, the presidents of North and South Korea agreed to hold their first ever summit meeting. The South wants the talks to talk on the North's suspected nuclear weapons program. The U.S. Coast Guard continued to intercept the new exodus of Haitian refugees at sea. Nearly 3000 boat people have fled the island since last Friday. President and Mrs. Clinton established a defense fund to pay for their mounting legal fees, and in economic news, new home sales and consumer confidence rose sharply. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.