Balancing Immigration With Job Openings

Even as unemployment rises, Frank del Olmo presses for a guest-worker program (“Quick Fix Isn’t Enough to Cure the INS,” Commentary, Nov. 18). “Who,” he asks, “could have foreseen the demand for foreign computer specialists by companies such as Microsoft?” Well, Congress thought it foresaw the demand. It let in a flood of computer programmers just in time for the high-tech crash.

In truth, unending immigration can’t end labor shortages, it only guarantees overpopulation. We can’t predict labor demand in a free-market economy any more than we can predict unemployment or stock prices. As long as supply and demand rule our economy there won’t always be one worker for each job (or one job for each worker, either).

If we want the government to assign people to jobs, we must switch to a command economy, that is, communism.

Kenneth Pasternack

Santa Barbara

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The additional reforms proposed by Del Olmo simply don’t make sense. According to him, a “Bureau of Immigration Services” should be a part of the Department of Labor, on the basis that the INS should be monitoring the “constant flux in our labor market.” Why would the INS do that? Its hands will be full handling the backlogged processing function. What is Del Olmo proposing that the INS do with the labor statistics, use them to decide how many immigrants to let in? That’s not its role; such decisions are and should continue to be made at the congressional level.

Del Olmo goes on to propose that a new immigration bureau be “linked” with the Department of Health and Human Services. He doesn’t describe how such linkage should occur but does cite such linkage as necessary in order for the federal government to better provide for the social services needs of future immigrants. Huh? Will the bureau have some sort of inside information concerning how many illegal immigrants the Health and Human Services Department should plan on?

Del Olmo concludes by expressing his belief that even the most dramatic INS reorganization may not be sufficient to meet the immigration challenges presented by the 21st century. I’m less pessimistic, in part because his thoughts on the subject are too silly to be included in the debate.

Karen D. Johnson

Los Angeles