QUESTIONS ABOUT IMMIGRATION

A recent Roper poll suggests nearly eight of every 10 Americans believe immigration rates should be cut dramatically, and one-fifth want a halt to all immigration, legal or not.

In 1994, the United States granted legal residency, asylum or refugee status to 804,416 foreigners. Illegal immigrants total at least 300,000 each year. Seventy-nine percent of those polled said no more than 600,000 immigrants should be allowed in each year. Of that number, 70 percent favored immigration rates of 300,000 or fewer annually, and 54 percent want rates of 100,000 or fewer.

The problem with the poll, commissioned by Negative Population Growth Inc., is that it lumped legal and illegal immigration into a single category before asking respondents to specify permissible numbers. U.S. immigration policy is fairly knotty stuff, and it seems reasonable that open-ended questions would skew results among an uninformed public.

Few doubt the validity of the poll results when applied to illegal immigration -- particularly when the children of illegals often enjoy the full rights of citizenship. Reports of illegal immigrants getting welfare and free education and health care infuriates many taxpayers. But legal immigration is another issue.

Whether legal immigration should be reduced is an issue that should be debated. But to cut it dramatically might have adverse consequences. Look up the surnames under the "physicians" entry in the Yellow Pages, and you begin to see the value of at least one group of immigrants.

Other immigrants work long hours at low-wage jobs until they save enough money to set out in business on their own in the best tradition of the entrepreneurial spirit that made this country great.

A hot-button, populist issue, immigration policy should be debated in the context of the benefits as well as the liabilities of legal immigration, while devising a way to curb illegal immigration.