European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 29, 1981, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Immigration to the How wide the door by John Crewdson new York times after years of relative inattention to the control of there Are signs that the incoming with encouragement from the Reagan May confront a difficult question How wide should the door through which millions of immigrants have stepped remain open the impending certain to be spirited and Divi follows a year in which nearly half the country population growth has been attributable to Legal immigration and in by most illegal immigration has never been the 1970s May be remembered As the decade of the in the last 10 the United states has absorbed More than four million immigrants and refugees and perhaps twice that number of illegal More new residents than in any decade in its so Many have arrived that if current immigration and Fertility rates remain the the nations population will double in a Hundred Many immigration officials acknowledge that the immigration control system is in such disarray that practically anyone who wishes to live and work in the United states and who can afford the passage can legally or and stay for months or if not for until now the prevailing in Congress and else has appeared to be typified by a demo cratic congressional aide who in not sure the problems Are soluble a lot of it is beyond our but there Are growing in Public opinion polls and in angry letters from that Many convinced that immigrants Are taking their draining the Treasury and dividing cities into Iso lated and increasingly hostile ethnic Are demanding a one recent by the Roper showed that nine of 10 of those surveyed supported an fallout Effort to halt illegal immigration and that eight of 10 favored reducing the number of Legal Alan attributes this re action to compassion and there can be no disputing that America in recent years has displayed an abundance of in some immigrants and refugees were legally admitted to the United in 1980 there were More than including cuban and Hai Tian boat people who were not invited but who Are being allowed to remain More than will be taken in by All other countries at the same an attempt has begun to curb some of the abuses that have come to somewhere along the line were going to have to learn to say said As head of the revitalized Senate subcommittee on he his task will be to take the expected legislative reforms from the Reagan White House and get the stuff up for a the real said the who reflects the conservative mood of the 97th and the one i intend to bring the focus Back is what is Best for the existing human beings who Are i dont hear anybody wait a what about those of us who Are Here the reluctance of Congress to ask that question has been a source of exasperation among those in the executive Branch aware of the burgeoning when i was with the Leonel the former commissioner of said re Ferring to the immigration and naturalization i realized that Congress likes what we have Clear some people derive great Benefit from the present though Castillo did not name the main beneficiaries appear to be business interests that employ illegal aliens at Low twice in recent years business lobbyists have helped defeat in the Senate legislation forbid Ding the employment of illegal aliens after it had been passed by the House of though there is a growing belief around the nation in a time of continuing High Immi Grants Are taking jobs from american the real impetus for if it will More Likely be the Long awaited final report of the select commission on immigration and refugee set up last year to Chart immigration policies for the rest of the Century and among the 16 commissioners Are four Cabinet Mem four including four representatives and four members at including the Theodore the panels who is president of the University of notre the commission voted in december to recommend an amnesty for illegal aliens in the United states and Pas up Page 14 Ray Marshall Leonel Castillo involved in debate Over immigration the stars and stripes Sage of a Federal Law prohibiting the employment of workers without proper the commissions logic appeared to be that the Situa Tion was so hopeless that the practical solution was to Start Over by making the illegal aliens now Here citizens and removing incentives for others to follow in their but sorting out citizens from uninvited visitors is difficult in a country whose population is made up of so Many ethnic the commission left what some see As a crucial Gap in its logic by failing to endorse a National work permit that would help employers Tell who they could the divided Between conservatives and liberals on the work permit question and other will grow More conservative this month when it is joined by a new Republican attorney general and secretaries of health and human and members say that votes on some key recommendations May be reconsidered before being sent to the Reagan administration has not formulated a de tailed list of immigration aides say president elect Ronald Reagan has indicated his support for strengthened enforcement of immigration combined with a program to permit More foreign workers into the country on a temporary the idea of temporary workers was rejected by the commission but it is appealing to Simpson and other key though an amnesty proposal died in Congress after it was submitted by president Carter More than three years congressional aides say the legislation was badly managed by the White House and that there May be enough support for such a plan in both the incoming Republican controlled Senate and the still democratic but increasingly conservative House of As distasteful As the idea of an amnesty May be to americans a recent Gallup poll found that Only 37 percent of those questioned supported such a plan most students of the problem Are convinced that there is no practical a mass Roundup and deportation might be impracticable if not who said there May be close to 12 million illegal aliens living in the double the highest estimate of the Carter and terms such a dragnet the greatest waste of Effort and resources most authorities feel that to allow the aliens to retain their illegal on the other would be to perpetuate a permanent underclass subject to abuse from a Host of including alien smugglers who Force them into unscrupulous immigration officers who solicit and employ ers who demand kickbacks in return for while illegal aliens pay the same Federal and state taxes As numerous studies have shown they Are reluctant to take full advantage of social services financed with their though the aliens May be willing to put up with hard ships in return for economic Ray the outgoing Secretary of has suggested that their children will not have the same attitude and that ignoring the problem May result in another civil rights Strug Gle in our nation in 10 or 15 All of these and would be resolved by a general and Simpson said he believed that the american people May buy it if they see that we have an appropriate enforcement mechanism in place so that it int going to happen but such a mechanism would depend largely on new legislation prohibiting employment of illegal and debate Over the passage of such a Law is certain to turn on the thorny question of whether illegal aliens Are Dis placing american no economist doubts that Many illegal aliens perform Low paying jobs that would otherwise go or that some Labo intensive such As garment Are now virtually dependent on them for but there Are also those who argue that the presence of illegal workers keeps wages and working condition from improving to the Point where they would be attractive to and Marshall has asserted that without the think we map6 anyprosr6sson th6il1p6alali6n probl6m millions of undocumented workers now in the country the unemployment rate might be reduced to less than 4 reagans views on this question remain to be Henry a Campaign said the president elect had expressed the feeling that the folks coming from Mexico for the most part Are doing work that Nec that there not replacing citizens and that Mexico needs this kind of though a Law forbidding the employment of Ille Gal aliens is increasingly attractive to critics argue that the United states is very nearly unable to enforce existing immigration Laws and that searching every place of business in the country would require an army of police proponents reply that while such a Law might not Stop All illegal immigrants and might not be rigorously enforced with regard to restaurants and other Small Busi it would enable the Justice department to attack Large employers with a pattern of employing whatever its ultimate talk of an employment Law inspires anger among Many hispanic who fear that it would subject citizens with Spanish surnames to inordinate and perhaps  scrutiny by if they do have they better do it in a Way that certain groups dont Bear the Brunt of said Lupe until recently a special assistant to attorney general Benjamin if they  have every hispanic in the country up in a crucial element in enforcing the Federal statute would be the sort of government issued counterfeiter Distant work permit opposed by the select Simpson dismissed fears of civil libertarians on the com Mission that such a permit might become a National identity and said he hoped the Congress would approve enforcement cant work without some kind of he though the idea was also rejected by the select com some of those who favor employer among them Many Rankan file immigration argue that in addition to halting the flow of illegal for eign workers some provision ought to be made for allow ing such workers into the country on a con trolled basis if a need Reagan endorsed such an approach in a Campaign speech last september in which he suggested that aliens be Given visas enabling them to work in the for whatever length of time they want to according to Reagan explained More recently that Hes in favor of doing away with the abuses of the undocumented where people dont pay their wages and these kinds of the temporary worker concept is strongly by much of organized labor and by hispanic rights other critics Point to the experience of West Germany and which imported millions of guest workers from Southern Europe and then found it difficult to persuade them to return a product of Mexico however the aliens As refugees or temporary the Wisdom of Large scale immigration in times of economic distress will doubtless be a decisive question in whatever conclusions Are there is also growing grassroots concern unlike immigrants of the 19th and Early 20th Many of the newest particularly those who speak Span Are less inclined to Trade their primary cultures and languages for those of their adopted the resentment that this causes is most evident in the heated debate Over bilingualism in the schools and at the polling and Over or As is True in los multilingual Spanish and japanese signs and notices in Public but the dismay is also More As with the growing annoyance among  Resi dents of Miami who find it difficult to communicate with the cubans who Are rapidly supplanting Blacks in service jobs the same linguistic frustrations can be found to a lesser extent in new York with its Large puerto rican in where half a million mexi cans and mexican americans now and in polyglot los amid the clamor of More than 80 languages and in some cultural disparities Are giving Rise to racial and ethnic tensions that have occasionally erupted in last boats were set afire and a Man murdered after Texas shrimpers tangled with vietnamese Fisher in the suburbs of As in cities across the gunfire has erupted Between mexican Amer icons and illegal mexican aliens with whom they com Pete for jobs and most disturbing of All Are the recent reports from Texas that paramilitary units of the Kun flux klan Are training their members to Hunt illegal aliens along the a Central element in the select commissions and one for which there appears to be substantial support in is the appropriation of More Man Power and Materiel for the immigration whose officials feel their mounting problems have been largely ignored by successive keeping unwanted aliens from its shores has never been among the highest priorities in a nation that thinks of itself As a land of and because citizens and lawmakers have instinctively recoiled from adopting such measures As Border fortifications and National Iden Tity the immigration enforcement system that exists today was never intended to Deal with anything like the influx that confronts in Only illegal aliens were arrested in the United there have been eight million such arrests since including nearly a million in because the nations defences have not increased at an equal the United states now finds itself largely unable to in sure the Security of its january 1981 the stars and stripes Page 15