Del Olmo on Jordan Report

Re “The ‘Flakes’ Get a Foot in the Door,” Commentary, Sept. 17: Frank del Olmo advances the Jordan Commission’s position that immigrants help create economic opportunity and enhance American culture. It seems to me that the overwhelming majority of immigrants come here seeking work and thus compete with Americans for dwindling positions.

As for culture, wherein lies the enhancement? This country has an exceedingly rich one, and if anything, we are exporting it to a world hungry for it. Neither does the transfer of culture require “personal delivery” by newcomers, in these days of high-tech global communication.

HANS J. PLICKERT

Downey

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* Del Olmo is correct in his observation that the Jordan Commission’s recommendation for a 24% reduction in the rate of legal immigration into this country should have been backed by factual evidence. By the same token, Del Olmo’s position that most of today’s anti-immigrant sentiment is extremist in nature should have also been corroborated by the facts.

The last great waves of immigrants into the United States, around the turn of this century, entered a country of a little more than 100 million people. Today’s immigrants are amid a land of 260 million Americans. According to most demographers, the native-born American population stabilized in the 1970s, and the bulk of U.S. population growth since then is due to immigration. If this trend continues, 90% of our nation’s population growth between now and 2050 will have been the result of immigration, when the nation’s population is expected to exceed 400 million. It’s as irresponsible to saddle future generations of Americans with a crushing national debt of trillions upon trillions of dollars as it is to saddle our descendants in 2050 with the horrific burdens of living within a nation of 400 million citizens.

If Del Olmo doesn’t like this argument, the least he can do is cite his reasons for disagreeing with them. He can either tell us our numbers are wrong, or that 400 million-plus Americans a half-century from now is a really cool thing. But to label the growing national concern about the evils of overpopulation as emanating from “the eugenics movement of the 1930s and other now-discredited racialist ideologies” seems like an attempt to limit debate through finger-pointing.

MICHAEL A. SCOTT

Glendora