The economics of immigration, and other factors

THANKS TO Andrew Sum and Paul Harrington, of the Center for Labor Market Studies, for their Oct. 16 op-ed "Two kinds of immigration." President Bush is spinning a fantasy when he extols "willing workers" seeking "willing employers." A "willing" worker is generally a desperately poor, unskilled individual from the Third World seeking almost any kind of work. A "willing" employer is generally a mercenary and conniving firm or individual offering employment to willing workers at nonliving wages and terrible working conditions.

During the last 20 years, illegal aliens have wiped out African-American janitors in Southern California, dry-wallers throughout California, and meat packers throughout the Midwest, just to name a few displaced American worker segments. Hourly wages have fallen in all those sectors.

It's a myth that Americans won't do hard labor. The truth is that Americans won't live two families in a garage, or 20 in a trailer, and suffer similar indignities just to sell their first-world labors at Third World rates. It's bottom-of-the-barrel wages, not hard work, that American workers reject.

MICHAEL SCOTT
Glendora, Calif.

PETER SKERRY ("Immigration realities," op-ed, Oct. 15) says we should end ``the arguments over bilingual education . . . and get serious about making sure immigrants learn English." Agreed. The best way to end the arguments is to embrace bilingual education.

There is a consensus among researchers that bilingual programs significantly accelerate English language development. Studies show that English learners in bilingual programs typically outperform similar students in all-English programs on tests of English reading. A number of analyses also show that dropping bilingual education did not increase achievement in Massachusetts, Arizona, or California.

STEPHEN KRASHEN
Los Angeles

The writer is on the board of the Institute for Language and Education Policy in Takoma Park, Md.

AFTER SKEWERING some of our immigration shibboleths, Peter Skerry concludes that Americans have ambiguous feelings about immigration: We're not sure that we want immigrants to stay.

Actually, poll after poll reveals that Americans want immigration to be substantially reduced, indicating that we're not nearly as ambivalent on the subject as Skerry suggests. As an example, the Center for Immigration Studies has just reported that 68 percent of voters nationwide think immigration is too high.

So the choices that Skerry asserts lie ahead of us -- chiefly details about assimilation -- are really secondary considerations. This fundamental question needs to be answered first: Why should we permit any immigration at all?

PAUL NACHMAN
Bozeman, Mont.