Controlling Immigration

Is Southern California teetering on the brink of collapse or is it poised for a leading global role in the 21st century? It depends on your perspective. Michael Dear, an academic, argues the latter in “Tear Down Our Own Berlin Wall” (Commentary, Dec. 8). His rose-colored glasses see the region’s many problems as a challenge to be overcome by social engineering.

But a realistic look at the problems of poverty, juvenile delinquency, teenage pregnancy, high school dropout rates and overburdened welfare roles and their relationship to the mass immigrant settlement in the area suggests a different and more realistic solution: Bring the nation’s immigration policy into accord with the nation’s needs.

We are moving toward wrestling the current immigration tidal wave under control, but that effort is made immeasurably more difficult by federal judges, cheap labor advocates and liberal social engineers who are not happy with the America of our parents and want to reshape it. They ignore the fact that we had great economic growth in the middle of this century when we had very low immigration.

Dear asserts that the exploding metropolitan areas will collapse if immigration is reduced. What nonsense. Let’s instead bring immigration into balance with our population dynamics, so that it is not driving an expanding population, with all the attendant problems.

JOHN L. MARTIN

Special Projects Director

Federation for American

Immigration Reform, Washington