Immigrants

Lou Galambos, professor of economic history and one of the senior owls at Johns Hopkins University, raises the ghost of his grandfather Lazlo in his new book, "The Creative Society," an admiring survey of the American professional class - the lawyers, scientists, doctors, business managers, teachers and others who made considerable contributions to the nation's power, prosperity and health between 1890 and 2010. It was the professional class that evolved throughout the 20th century to drive the U.S. economy and shape our society, Mr. Galambos writes, "and it's time we look at their contributions from the ground-up.

While Republicans beat the drums of demagoguery with an attack on birthright citizenship designed to stoke anti-immigrant fervor in an election year, I'd like to suggest they shift focus back to another part of the Constitution that really needs to go: the requirement that the president be born in the United States. You can Google it, my fellow Americans: Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 says you can't run for the White House unless you were born here. Seven years ago, Orrin Hatch, the sartorially splendid Republican senator of Utah, proposed an amendment to allow foreign-born Americans who have been citizens for at least two decades to run for president.

Some people have argued that the Boston Marathon bombing should not affect immigration reform because immigrants in the country illegally are not in the habit of planting bombs. But that doesn't doesn't mean they are safe. Many gang members are here illegally, including members of the dreaded MS-13. The gang member who killed the four New Jersey college students was in the country illegally. The 25-year-old man who kidnapped the 13-year-old-boy at a bus stop in Florida was too. And countless others kill people in traffic accidents.

WASHINGTON -- A taste of how low the immigration debate can go spilled out when Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California, suggested that we give jobs now held largely by illegal immigrants to convicts. "I say, let the prisoners pick the fruits!" he said. Ah, yes, involuntary servitude. I think we tried that once before in America. Didn't work out. Yet even a remark as memorably goofy as Mr. Rohrabacher's stumbles onto a troubling truth: If we did look to prison workers to save certain industries, we would find an unfortunately growing labor pool.

I am gratified that the chairman of the Official English movement and proponent of the Anne Arundel County English only bill is not motivated by the same hostility against immigrants that I have seen enacted in Arizona and Alabama and even in some of the xenophobic capers among the Frederick, Carroll and Baltimore County commissioners and council members ("English is the language of success in America," Feb. 12). Instead, an English-only bill is touted as the quickest way to help immigrants succeed.

A survey of 549 community-based organizations suggests that housing discrimination is on the rise, particularly targeting disabled individuals, immigrants, minorities and families with children, according to the nonprofit Consumer Action . Locally, Baltimore Neighborhoods Inc. has said it found similar problems. The organizations, which has sent “testers” out in the region to inquire about available housing, filed suit last year and in 2010 over alleged discrimination.

St. Louis. -- Both the opponents and proponents of open immigration have missed an obvious fact: The American borders are wide open and cannot be closed to hordes of modern-day immigrants.The half-million or so aliens who annually steal across the country's southern borders in the dark of night are a mere trickle of the flow of undocumented immigrants who make their way into the American economy. Literally millions of other undocumented immigrants enter each day with impunity from immigration laws.

On the same front page we read about in-state tuition being granted to illegals but scholarships being cut for our top students. This may mollify Hispanic groups but anger the majority of Democrats. In any event it is a clear case of discriminating against Americans of all ethnicities to fund favors for illegals. This could change things in the next election, and not in favor of Democratic incumbents. John Culleton, Eldersburg

With the immigration issue front and center after the passage of Arizona's law, representatives from both parties, such as Rep. Jared Polis, Democrat of Colorado, and Connie Mack, Republican of Florida, have denounced it, likening this law to something the Reichstag might have passed. But invoking Nazism seems, to me, a distraction. Historical evidence teaches us we can quickly resolve the issue of identifying and adjudicating millions of controversial people in our midst; Congress merely needs to enact a law containing the following 10 points: 1. This law must empower and direct our federal courts to enforce the federal immigration laws already on the books.