Stick to the Real Problem

A perfect illustration of excess in the debate that will produce a new immigration law in 1996 took place Wednesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The panel met to mark up Sen. Alan K. Simpson’s proposals to restrict the number of visas, raise the standards for applicants and charge businesses a fee for bringing into the country highly skilled workers as legal immigrants.

The issue at stake, said Simpson, is jobs. The Wyoming Republican argued that these immigrants-- many of whom work as engineers and computer programmers in high-tech industries, physical therapists in hospitals and researchers in universities--take job opportunities away from Americans.

Not so, countered business lobbyists. A far greater economic harm will be felt if Simpson’s restrictionist views prevail, they argued, saying the United States is not producing enough skilled workers in certain job categories to be globally competitive today.

Current immigration law provides 140,000 entry slots a year for skilled foreign workers or investors who promise to create jobs. This quota has not been filled, and in fact there are fewer than 100,000 applicants yearly. Simpson’s bill (S 1394) would cut the permanent immigration slots to 90,000, which is 50,000 less than the legal allowance, and 10,000 fewer than the current applicants.

The strong opposition from the business lobbies led Simpson to soften some of his proposals, and the overall immigration debate will continue-- on more substantive issues, we hope. The side issue of highly skilled workers is actually a nonexistent problem. Congress must decide on the appropriate number of visas for legal immigrants and agree on who should be given preference, by category and country of origin.

Illegal immigration is the real issue. The Senate, and Congress as a whole, needs to cut out the nonsense and focus on that. Our representatives should be debating ways to better control our borders and stem the wave of illegal entrants. This is the problem spinning out of control in American cities and towns.

Congress should not get hung up on the question of legal immigrants, who obey the rules. As we have said before, the matters of illegal and legal arrivals should be treated separately so the political passions of one do not inflame the other.