ABSTRACT
No one dared take a break. On the very day on which the Senate passed its bill, the immigration organizations began to try to influence the House-Senate Conference Committee that would merge the two versions of the law. The House and Senate leaders had not yet selected their delegates to the Conference Committee, but the NIF knew from the outset that Smith was likely to be the leader of the House delegation, that he would take a strong stand in favor of the more restrictive House bill, and that the other House Republicans might all follow his lead. Its opening move, therefore, was to try to involve the more moderate Henry Hyde in the work of the Conference Committee. Hours after the Senate voted ninety-seven to three to pass the bill, the NIF faxed its activists, urging them to ask their own representatives to put pressure on Hyde to accept the Leahy amendment.2
