Immigration Proposals
* Predictably, The Times did not like the recommendations offered by the House of Representatives’ Task Force on Illegal Immigration (“Good for a Laugh, Not Much More,” editorial, July 4). Over the years, The Times has managed to find fault with most proposals to control illegal immigration.
The recommendations of the congressional task force, headed by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), are in fact a perfect complement to the proposals laid out in last September’s report by Barbara Jordan’s Commission on Immigration Reform. The Jordan Commission places emphasis on punishing employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens. It has long been acknowledged by experts in this field that effective enforcement of employer sanctions is essential to controlling illegal immigration.
The task force’s report reaffirms this basic principle and then goes a step further. It asserts that there ought to be some accountability on the part of the alien for his or her illegal act. Like any other lawbreaker, a person who violates our immigration laws should be punished for the illegal act. The penalties to the illegal aliens proposed by the task force are reasonable and fit the crime.
Persuading both employers and illegal aliens that there is a price to be paid for violating immigration laws is the key to deterring illegal immigration. Removing incentives and creating disincentives are how government should influence human behavior like illegal migration.
DAN STEIN, Executive Director
Federation for American Immigration
Reform, Washington
* It is (almost) unbelievable that a congressional committee has recommended that Congress pass a federal version of Proposition 187 (June 29). Proposition 187 has already cost California a substantial amount of taxpayers’ money. For Congress to copy it right now would be a big mistake.
Proposition 187 has yet to save taxpayers any money, because it is tied up in the courts. The same fate awaits a federal version. So, why aren’t Republicans in Congress waiting for the ruling on California’s Proposition 187 before considering their own? If the courts rule that 187 is constitutional, then that will be the time for a federal version to be put in place without significant delay. JEREMY MICHELSON
Santa Barbara
* Peter Brimelow, in “Keep Reform Focused on Fact” (Commentary, June 20), distorts the Immigration Act of 1965 and badly misinforms the public about our present immigration system to support his anti-immigration stance.
Brimelow suggests that the “perverse workings” of the 1965 act have somehow skewed immigration to favor immigrants from a “handful of countries . . . whose populations are racially quite different from most Americans.” Our immigration system was skewed prior to 1965 with a national origins quota system favoring immigrants from Western Europe. For 60 years, Chinese immigrants were banned from coming to this country by the Chinese Exclusion Act and our exclusionary policies kept out many other Asians as well, throughout the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries.
Under our present system no country has special preferences or quotas. Instead, we have an open system based on family reunification and skills.
Americans need to realize that immigrants, who constitute 8% of the U.S. population, are not the cause of our major economic and social problems. Rather, look to the politicians who keep pointing the finger at immigrants, who want us to forget how incompetent they have been.
CAROLYN LA, Staff Attorney
Asian Pacific American Legal Center
Los Angeles
