Immigration Plan Will Erode the U.S. Economy

Re “Fox Backs Bush’s Reforms,” Jan. 13: When are the media, The Times included, going to challenge Mexican President Vicente Fox and President Bush on immigration? Fox is an ineffective leader, and his only chance for making a name for himself is meddling in American immigration policy. Bush is selling out to big business. Everyone says the proposals will be good for illegals, but no one says how they will affect low-wage workers who are legal. Flooding the market with low-wage workers will further erode our economy and drain state and local coffers.

Brian Martinez

Adelanto

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There’s a simple economic fact that renders Bush’s immigration policy ineffective. If currently undocumented workers are provided work visas (certainly a good idea in principle), they will be subject to minimum-wage laws and certain benefits, as all legal workers are. Minimum wage, however, is far higher than what undocumented workers are making now. So work crews in the Imperial Valley, if suddenly made legal, will become much more expensive for their employers.

In response, employers will hire new undocumented, and thus cheaper, workers, if not kept from doing otherwise by law enforcement. So the only way to really curb mass immigration is to crack down on businesses that hire undocumented workers. And is the Bush administration one to do this cracking down? Not likely.

Stefan Frazier

Los Angeles

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J.A. Marty’s assertion that “if you are afraid of losing your job, maybe you should get a better education and a better job” is simplistic, to say the least (letter, Jan. 12). Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that every person in America took that advice and got a better education. Who is creating the better-paying jobs? Wal-Mart? Let’s not exaggerate what immigrants will find when they land here, nor what those who are already here and looking for a job find every day in their search for even a smidgen of the American dream. The great majority of us will never even get a sniff of it. But it won’t be because a great many of those people were “fat and lazy.”

Chris Trevett

Torrance