Panel debates cause, effect of immigration

Demands for a national immigration policy and criticism of American Cold War policies dominated the second in a series of debates on immigration in the University Student Union yesterday.

"Immigration in California Today: Myths and Realities," generated a provoking discussion between three panelists, but none had any answers for the problems immigration currently poses for the United States and California.

The event was the second part of a Cal State Long Beach symposium dealing with the state's rising population controversy.

Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, political science Professor Ronald Schmidt and comparative literature and classics Lecturer Teri Yamada were the featured speakers at Tuesday's discussion.

Mehlman said all immigration should be done through legal channels.

"Do we want a country of 4 or 5 billion people?" he asked.

Schmidt and Yamada both blamed American military and foreign policy decisions for current immigration problems.

"We have helped to bring about our present wave of immigration in ways we don't recognize," Schmidt said.

Although Mehlman failed to state what his or FAIR's specific ideas for a national immigration policy should be, Schmidt mentioned push and pull factors as contributing to immigration.

"Political terrorism is one form of a push factor," Schmidt said. "So is economic dislocation that drives people away from their traditional ways of making a living."

Schmidt also criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement for displacing Mexican peasants, large corporations for having no national loyalties and American banks for pushing loans on Mexico to develop potential oil reserves.

Schmidt brought up technological innovations as part of the economic changes that are shrinking and integrating the world.

"Televisions are part of the technological innovations that we are responsible for. How does television generate immigration? People see in their own homes the world and the way of life in much richer parts of the world."

Yamada used the history of Cambodia - from French colonization to the Vietnam War through the regime of the Khmer Rouge - as the reason for a mass exodus of Cambodians.

The city of Long Beach is home to 58,000 Cambodians, the largest Cambodian community outside Cambodia, Yamada said.

She blamed covert operations for a genocide and said that America is now coming to terms with its communist containment policies of the Cold War.

"Rarely do we discuss how American military and economic policy have contributed to the destabilization of countries and massive population displacement," Vamada said. "Would those one million refugee Southeast Asians living here since 1975 have ever left Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos if there had been no American war for 15 years in Southeast Asia? Probably not."