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Dear Editor,
John Cassidy's article criticizes the recent report of the National Academy of Sciences which concluded that immigrants may be adding as much as ten billion dollars to the economy each year ("The Melting Pot Myth", July 14th). The problem is that Cassidy clearly stacks the deck against legal immigration.
After quoting a couple of the economists who were surprised by the spin placed on the report by the New York Times, Cassidy quickly takes the low road and feeds us tidbits about the changing racial composition of today s immigrants, white flight from areas of high-immigration, unnamed liberals and elitists who favor an open door policy and the fact that immigration hurts the poor and benefits the rich . (emphasis added) Cassidy is careful to intersperse his mini- analysis of U.S. immigration policy with a variety of statistics from other economic studies which seem to be at odds with the National Academy of Sciences conclusions. The article s subtext, however, is stated in its melodramatic subtitle: Immigration made America. Could it unmake it, too?
One doesn t have to be an expert on either immigration or race relations to realize that Cassidy is, by implication, making the same case against immigration that his fellow immigrant Peter Brimelow made in his infamous anti-immigrant tract Alien Nation . In plain English, the new immigrants are a shade darker than real Americans and this may be an excellent time to pull up the drawbridge and fill the moat with piranhas.
I have worked with immigrants for over twenty years, including a six-year stint with the Immigration Service. To set the record straight, the open door policy on immigration ended in 1921 and these days the quotas limit the number of legal immigrants to less than one-third of one percent of the U.S. population annually. A trickle, not a flood. Criminals and potential welfare cases are weeded out. More than half of those who do qualify are spouses and sons and daughters of U.S. citizens and legal residents. Most of the others are either refugees or highly- qualified workers whose skills are sought by U.S. employers who go through a long and tedious process of proving to the Labor Department that they can not locate even a minimally qualified American to fill a particular job.
Immigration is what America is all about. It s about family values and about the importance of drive and hard work. And, finally, do immigrants substantially benefit the economy? If Cassidy doubts this, let him come to California. A few years ago, due to the virtual loss of the aerospace industry, riots, earthquakes, fires and floods, many people were leaving our state. Now, our economy is rebounding thanks to impressive gains in such industries as international trade, computers, biotechnology and entertainment, all industries where immigrants are important contributors.
And guess what, Mr. Cassidy, many of those expatriates who moved to other states are now back home in California.
Carl Shusterman
600 Wilshire Boulevard, #1550
Los Angeles, CA 90017
(213) 623-4592
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