Scapegoating of Immigrants

Your editorial (“The Immigration Blame Game,” Nov. 11), as well as Sergio Munoz’s article (“The Divisiveness of Half-Truths,” Commentary, Nov. 12), correctly discredits those who try to find in the immigrant community a useful scapegoat for the country’s problems.

The background of both pieces is an official study by the county’s Internal Services Department, whose findings are consistent to past fiscal analysis: Immigrants pay much more in taxes than what they receive in social services. The problem for local governments is that they receive a very small portion of the tax revenue generated by immigrants, which is retained almost entirely by the state and federal governments.

As Munoz argues, it is hardly the immigrants’ fault if their tax contribution is not equitably distributed within the different spheres of government. Moreover, as the UCLA research team headed by David Hayes-Bautista has shown, the relative participation of Latinos in public assistance programs is quite low, especially considering the high rates of poverty in which they live. Even the county’s study showed the fact that in most areas of the Los Angeles welfare system, recently arrived immigrants used less than their share of services.

Because of its polarizing potential, the immigration issue is exploited by some politicians and anti-immigrant groups who take advantage of today’s recessionary times. Playing on fears that the state and county have become magnets for destitute newcomers, they contribute to the immigrant blame game by feeding xenophobic tendencies and absurd myths about immigrants usurping employment opportunities from natives, depressing wages and sapping social services.

The rise of nativism, not the immigrants per se, is the real threat to California and its long tradition of diversity, ethnic consciousness and multiculturalism.

FAUSTO ZAPATA

Consul General of Mexico

Los Angeles