Immigration

Elton Gallegly’s Column Right on “immigration reform” (Oct. 2) focuses on L.A. County’s burden in delivering the babies of illegal aliens for free and is offering a bill in Congress to federally reimburse the county, providing the mother’s illegal status is determined and written down. This is equity in bookkeeping and helps the county taxpayer (a little).

But nowhere does Gallegly mention the need to reform legal immigration. Legal immigrants are far more numerous than illegal immigrants, and they stand to be arriving in the same inflated numbers, or greater, into the next century. The federal commission chaired by Barbara Jordan calls for caps on what some regard as the source of our future demise.

One does not have to be “xenophobic” or a “racist” to support immigration control. This is not the 1890s. There are not enough jobs (especially low-skilled jobs) and not enough opportunities (available or “made”) to absorb those we welcome. Hundreds of millions of the world’s poor migrate to cities or cross borders in search of a better life. They are in nearly every country by now, forming “surplus populations,” under-skilled and desperate for work.

DENTON PORTER, Long Beach