The President's statement places him in the middle of an explosive political debate, at odds with many of his usual supporters, but sympathetic to the concerns of people who want to restrict immigration. Many Republicans, like Senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, want to reduce legal immigration. Others see immigration as an engine of economic growth.

Representative Dick Armey, the Texas Republican who is the House majority leader, said: "The commission fails to tell us why we should so dramatically reduce legal immigration. It is long on recommendations, but short on analysis." He said the proposals were "a misguided attempt to make legal immigrants the scapegoats for America's problems."

The panel said that Congress should initially reduce legal immigration to 700,000 a year and ultimately to 550,000 from the current level of about 830,000. As a corollary, it said Congress should speed up the admission of spouses and young children of legal aliens.

At the same time, the panel said Congress should eliminate visa preferences for siblings and adult children of United States citizens. It would lower the limit on employment-related immigration to 100,000 a year from 140,000, and would eliminate the annual allotment of 10,000 visas for unskilled workers.

The panel also recommended reducing the number of refugees to 50,000 a year, down from the more than 100,000 admitted in each of the past five years.