Legal immigration must be curbed, too

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Jan, 1997 by Yeh Ling-Ling

Year after year, presidential candidates and members of Congress from both parties repeatedly have promised to reduce budget deficits, strengthen the economy. create jobs for Americans, and put welfare recipients back to work. Yet, how can those goals possibly be achieved if the U.S. continues to allow an average of more than 800,000 legal immigrants to enter the country try every year? These newcomers need jobs, education, welfare, health care, and many other services that can not even be provided to millions of native-born Americans.

As a naturalized citizen of Chinese ancestry with extensive professional experience preparing family- and employment-based immigrant petitions, I am disappointed over the lack of will in Washington to reduce legal immigration. This hesitancy continues despite the fact that even strong immigration rights advocates have admitted the adverse impact of mass immigration.

Antonia Hernandez, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, has stated that "migration, legal and undocumented, does have an impact on our economy.... Most of the competition is to the Latino community. We compete with each other for those low-paying jobs. There is an issue of wage depression, as in the garment industry, which is predominantly immigrant...."

Chinese-American Prof. Paul Ong of UCLA, a strong advocate of a liberal immigration policy, points out that, "In terms of adverse impact [of immigration] on wages and employment, the adverse impact will be most pronounced on minorities and established immigrants...."

Po Wong, director of the Chinese Newcomers Service Center in San Francisco, indicated in 1993 that, of the 11,000 new Chinese immigrants looking for work through his agency, just two percent were placed successfully. "I don't think our community is equipped to welcome this large a number.... It's very depressing to see so many people come here looking for work."

Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers Union, testified before the California Select Committee on immigration that, "With 1,500,000 legalized immigrants living in California, and only approximately 250,000 agricultural jobs in the state, there is no need for additional farm workers."

The pro-immigration Urban Institute has acknowledged that "less-skilled black workers and black workers in high immigration areas with stagnant economies are negatively affected [by immigration]."

Stanford University law professor Bill Ong Hing, author of a report on contributions of Asian immigrants, cites "a certain legitimacy to the view that parts of the country are being overcrowded with immigrants.... They affect growth, air pollution, water availability. It's not bogus for people to raise that issue."

The nation's leaders should be reminded that today's economy requires fewer and fewer workers due to automation, advances in technology, and corporate downsizing. Moreover, many jobs have been lost to foreign countries. If the Federal government continues to allow hundreds of thousands of low-skilled legal immigrants of working age to enter the U.S. every year, how can America's unemployed, low-skilled workers and welfare recipients be expected to find work? Rosy unemployment rates released by the Labor Department do not include millions of workers who are underemployed or never have found work.

U.S. immigration laws have a devastating impact on American professionals as well. In addition to 130,000 employment-based immigrant visas for foreign-born professionals being provided annually, virtually unlimited numbers of various types of "temporary workers" are permitted to enter to work in professional occupations for several years. "H1B [extraordinary ability] temporary workers" alone are estimated to be around 400,000 in this country at any time.

Today's global economy requires highly skilled workers to prosper. If the U.S. does not have sufficient resources to prepare its children and existing legal immigrants to be tomorrow's productive workers, why should the nation invite hundreds of thousands of legal immigrant children to America's already overcrowded schools every year? Fiscally responsible politicians should bear in mind that the cost of educating a child in the U.S. runs about $5,000 a year. If an immigrant child needs an average of eight years of education, it will cost taxpayers $40,000.

In 1994, 740,000 elderly legal immigrants were on welfare, a 580% increase over 1982. This number did not include the seniors who became naturalized citizens.) Bekki Mar. an immigration advocate working for Self-Help for the Elderly in San Francisco, indicated that 85% of the immigrant clients of her center were on welfare. If a senior immigrant receives welfare, Medicaid, food stamps, and government-subsidized low-income housing. he or she will cost taxpayers a minimum of $100,000 over a five-year period.

More than half of recent legal immigrants are low-skilled and therefore unlikely to pay enough taxes to cover the cost of educating their children. While many immigrants own businesses, they very rarely hire U.S.-born workers. The jobs they create usually are low-paying ones. These low-paying jobs frequently do not generate sufficient tax dollars to cover the cost of all the services rendered to the families of the immigrant employees and employers.