Immigration dystopia.'America or Utopia?' ['The Week,' March 25] and Roy Beck's 'Republicans against Reform' [April 8] leave your readers with the distinct impression that I oppose immigration reform Immigration reform is the common term used in political discussions regarding changes to immigration policy. In a certain sense, reform can be general enough to include promoted, expanded, or open immigration, but in reality discussions of reform often deal with the aspect of . Not so. I support reforms that focus on the real problem of illegal immigration "Illegal alien" and "Illegal aliens" redirect here. For other uses, see Illegal aliens (disambiguation). Illegal immigration refers to immigration across national borders in a way that violates the immigration laws of the destination country. without punishing employers and immigrants who play by the rules. In the Senate Judiciary Committee The U.S. Senate established the Committee on the Judiciary on December 10, 1816, as one of the original 11 standing committees. It is also one of the most powerful committees in Congress; among its wide range of jurisdictions is investigation of federal judicial nominees and oversight of , I added provisions to Sen. Alan Simpson's illegal- immigration immigration, entrance of a person (an alien) into a new country for the purpose of establishing permanent residence. Motives for immigration, like those for migration generally, are often economic, although religious or political factors may be very important. bill to beef up border patrol, penalize pe·nal·ize tr.v. pe·nal·ized, pe·nal·iz·ing, pe·nal·iz·es 1. To subject to a penalty, especially for infringement of a law or official regulation. See Synonyms at punish. 2. visa-overstayers, provide for swifter deportation of criminal aliens, and deny public assistance to illegal aliens and further restrict it for legal ones. The Committee also adopted two of my legal-immigration-reform amendments to the Simpson bill. One re-orders the family-priority system and freezes new applications for siblings, thus reducing immigration by 15 per cent in the family and diversity categories. The other amendment would increase protection for American workers through a layoff-attestation requirement for all businesses seeking to hire foreign temporary workers. I support legal-immigration reform -- just not the kind advocated by Mr. Beck and his colleagues in the population-control movement. Both pieces refer to a Bureau of Labor Statistics Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) A research agency of the U.S. Department of Labor; it compiles statistics on hours of work, average hourly earnings, employment and unemployment, consumer prices and many other variables. study showing that immigrants are responsible for 'roughly half the decline in the real wages' of high-school dropouts. But as the Wall Street Journal recently reported, there is no official BLS See Bureau of Labor Statistics. study on this subject, rather a 'working paper,' distributed by someone a BLS spokesman has described as a 'graduate student.' Other studies, such as one by Princeton's David Card David Edward Card is a Canadian labor economist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Card earned his B.A. from Queen's University in 1978 and his Ph.D. in Economics in 1983 from Princeton University. , show little wage impact from immigration. Using Census data spanning 15 years, NR contributing editor A contributing editor is a magazine job title that varies in responsibilities. Most often, a contributing editor is a freelancer who has proven ability and readership draw. Stephen Moore found that cities with the highest proportion of immigrants in 1990 had 15 per cent higher per-capita incomes, 130 per cent higher job growth, 17 per cent lower crime rates, and 17 per cent lower poverty rates than cities with few immigrants. 'America or Utopia?' argues that skilled immigrants add little to American entrepreneurship and are hired merely because they are cheaper than their native-born counterparts. The facts show the opposite. The Cato Institute's Stuart Anderson cites data from the National Academy of Sciences and National Science Foundation showing that immigrants with advanced degrees in science and engineering earn significantly more than their native-born counterparts. Both pieces urge Republicans to follow the polls. But principles are more important than polls, and such principles include that Americans be allowed to sponsor close family members and U.S. companies to hire the employees of their choice. Sen. Simpson is right to take on Social Security despite the polls. Polls are the last bastion of those with weak arguments. Spencer Abraham Washington, D.C. Please see the editorial on this subject in this issue's 'The Week.' -- ED. |
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