Informed Opinions on Today’s Topics : Vote Shifts Focus to Legal Immigration

By a 23-11 vote, the House Judiciary Committee last week approved a broad immigration bill that scales back the number of legal immigrants to 700,000 a year for the next five years, mostly by closing the door to the parents and siblings of new citizens. If passed, this would be the first time Congress has restricted legal immigration since 1924.

Should legal immigration be scaled back?

U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley):

“The overwhelming majority of my time has been focused on the issue of illegal immigration. However, the more you get into this issue the more you realize that you can’t deal exclusively with illegal immigration without looking at legal immigration. The proposals are . . . reasonable because they still provide for more people to legally enter this country each year than all the rest of the countries in the world combined. I think that in a country of immigrants we do need that diversity, but at the same time we have a real responsibility to have orderly immigration to protect the social and economic needs of all Americans--present and future.”

U.S. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City):

“I think that’s a mistake. We should be focusing all our efforts now on stopping illegal immigration. Cutting back legal immigration is destroying the seeds to our future prosperity. . . . Our legal immigrants use [welfare] far less than native-born Americans. These people come and want to work and contribute. They play by the rules and they are a fundamental part of the American tradition.”

Ira Mehlman, California media director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform:

“Absolutely. The levels of immigration we have seen in recent years are just unusual and way out of proportion with immigration in most of our history. Our immigration selection process has nothing to do today with what our national needs are. It is based on nepotism that sows the seeds for its own expansion.”

Ron Tasoff, an Encino lawyer and former chairman of the Southern California chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn.:

“Although the American people are justified in their concern that the costs and social problems associated with illegal immigration have gotten out of hand, there is no need to restrict legal immigration to the United States. By far the greatest portion of legal immigration [approximately 70%] is to reunite separated families. . . . The next largest group is refugees. . . . Finally, the smallest category is the employment-based immigration comprised of the ‘best and brightest’ individuals in the world. . . . For the United States to remain competitive in today’s world, we must continue to have laws that will allow people like these to come to our shores.”

Glenn Spencer, president of Voice of Citizens Together, a Sherman Oaks-based group dealing with the impact of immigration on California:

“I believe it should, yes. . . . The immigration laws we changed in 1965 were essentially a reaction to attempt to wipe out all racism in the United States. What this led to was absolute chaos and the tremendous stresses in the United States that we see today.”