Broken government

Re “Fixing immigration,” Opinion, July 13

The authors write: “Our immigration system has been broken for too long, and the costs of that failure are growing.”

Our immigration system is not broken, and we don’t need immigration reform. It is our government that is broken, and we need government reform.

We have politicians who pander to greedy merchants who want taxpayer-subsidized cheap foreign labor from poor countries.

Haydee Pavia

Laguna Woods

Out of the millions of illegal aliens in the U.S., how many of them would wind up as part of the 40% foreign-born science and engineer PhDs that Jeb Bush, Thomas F. McLarty III and Edward Alden cite in their article?

The sheer proximity to the U.S. and the weak border patrol on both the U.S. and Mexican sides have made certain that the majority of the illegal immigrant pool is from south of the border.

Sadly, most of these people provide only cheap labor and are often subjected to mistreatment. Whose fault is that?

Teresa C. Yu

Rancho Palos Verdes

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The writers are spot on about the immigration reforms we need. Squabbling legislators have acted as though various proposals are mutually exclusive, when they are not.

Let us have strong border control, but let us also have legalization of long-term illegal immigrants and a temporary-worker program that is effective and fair to workers, business and the public.

David Eggenschwiler

Los Angeles

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The authors write that the United States benefits from increased immigration, especially of well-educated professionals from the developing world.

How are the developing countries going to increase their standard of living if we continue to drain away their best and brightest talent? Better the developed world assists the developing nations by returning native graduates to their homelands and to assisting in establishing proper health facilities. This rationale applies to all the professional categories; business, industry and law.

It is time we train sufficient, competent American professionals in our own universities and facilities to meet our needs.

Paul Carlton

San Clemente