Skilled Immigrants Not the Problem

Charles Piller’s “Silicon Valley Immigration Debate Ignores Many Locals” [Innovation, July 12] identifies a central political challenge of our era: Those lacking skills and effective social networks are being left behind in the knowledge economy. This is painfully obvious in Silicon Valley, where Latinos and African Americans are largely outsiders to the region’s technology boom.

However, to link this problem to immigration, as Piller does, is misleading. The argument that highly skilled immigrants diminish opportunities for unskilled Latinos and African Americans is no more convincing than the opposite view, which he mistakenly attributes to my report, that immigrant entrepreneurship is a solution to their problems.

The challenge of developing policies that can make a meaningful difference for those left behind in the new economy--especially strategies that expand access and improve the quality of education and training--is far too important to be dragged into a divisive debate about immigration.

Dr. ANNA LEE SAXENIAN

Department of City

and Regional Planning

UC Berkeley