18 / CHRONICLESncountry,” he observes. “At what point,” he asks, “doesncultural, racial diversity become a kind of social anarchy?nHow do you get national cohesion this way?”nIt has been said that Americans would rather live withncomfortable myths than confront “inconvenient” realities.nJohn F. Kennedy’s pedestrian observation that “We are annation of immigrants” (what nation isn’t?) is used by manynas an excuse for failing to come to grips with the problemsnassociated with the great influx of peoples we are experiencingntoday. The economic, social, public health, political,nand national security dangers inherent in allowing immigrationnwithout limit to continue are real. We can no longernafford the luxury of pretending that they simply do not exist.nAccording to the latest figures from the Labor Department,nover seven million Americans are currently unemployed;nbut this figure does not include those who arenunderemployed or those who have simply given up lookingnfor work. During a time of sustained high un- and underemployment,nthe United States has been importing recordnnumbers of foreign workers, both legal and illegal. Immigrantsnhave been admitted without efforts to determine theirnlabor-market impact. Vernon Briggs of Cornell Universitynfinds that only 5 percent of legal immigrants have comenhere because they possess skills that are in short supply innthe U.S. or because they are especially dishnguished inntheir fields.nIt has often been noted that if aliens were displacingnlawyers, bureaucrats, professors, and media personalities.nnnswift action would be taken to halt the flood. But those mostndirectly affected by aliens in the labor force are not peoplenwho make their living by verbal ability.nThere are two common mistakes made about aliennworkers: first, that they are mostiy engaged in seasonalnagricultural labor, and second, that they generally take jobsnthat American citizens will not perform. In fact, relativelynfew foreign workers are farmhands or dishwashers. Only 15npercent of employed aliens work in agriculture. Most worknin cities, in heavy and light industry, construction, and thenservice sectors.nDonald Huddle of Rice University has found that fornevery 100 aliens employed in a given employment sector, atnleast 65 Americans are displaced or remain unemployed.nAmong those most directiy affected by alien job-seekers arenmembers of our minority populations, teenagers, andnpart-time workers. It is increasingly difficult for entry-levelnapplicants in parts of California, Texas, and Florida to findnany employment without being able to speak a version ofnSpanish or some Asian dialect. Do we not have a priornresponsibility to our homegrown entry and marginallynemployable before we admit more unskilled workers? It isnall the more important to address the condition of ournhard-pressed citizens, as it seems likely that technology willneliminate a large proportion of the relatively “simple” jobsnin the service, office, and manufacturing areas. As BrucenNussbaum commented in his book The World After Oil,n”The last thing America is going to need in the years aheadnis a flood of unskilled labor. As technocasualties mount, angrowing number of de-skilled people will be moving intonthe unskilled-labor pool. Hence a growing number ofnpeople, many of them furious at their new lower status innlife, will be competing for a shrinking number of jobs.”nIn recent years the INS has conducted a number of raidsnon job sites where large numbers of aliens have beennemployed. Aliens have often been found to be paid morenthan the minimum wage—frequently as much as $9.00 orn$10.00 an hour. Prof Huddle estimates that 3.5 millionnAmericans are unemployed because of illegal aliens. Thencitizens displaced from such jobs are a cost to all of us. Andnit is impossible to place a price tag on the damage done tonfamilies affected by alien-induced unemployment.nDefenders of liberal immigration policies often claimnthat aliens rarely use social services and actually contributenmore in taxes than they receive in benefits. Recent studiesnindicate that aliens are making heavy and increasing use ofntax-supported services and often at higher rates than citizensndo. For example:n—Nearly 80 percent of the infants born at Los AngelesnCounty public hospitals are born to mothers who are illegalnaliens.n—Ten percent of the population of El Salvador now livesnin California. The State Department reports that Salvadoransnresiding in the Los Angeles area cost U.S. taxpayers anminimum of $875 million annually.n—Following the wave of Cubans and Haitians who werenillegally permitted to remain in the U.S. in 1980, the statenof Florida has had to spend an additional $500 millionnevery year to meet the welfare demands of these uninvitednresidents.n—Thousands of Southeast Asians in California haven