Well-educated immigrants needed for the 21st century

To the editor:

Once again immigration policy is coming to the fore in Washington. I totally support immigration -- the kind of legal immigration that floats all boats, here and across the world. America is a country with a rare and enviable combination of vast resources coupled with economic and political stability. It is truly the land of opportunity.

Unless we alter our current direction by improving our schools and changing our value systems, we will have squandered our opportunity to move our country, and the world, into a future of growing prosperity and freedom. Given our resources, freedom and stability, we must alter our immigration policies to greatly favor the highly educated immigrant. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses," is a charitable goal, but with at least half of the world's population falling into this category we cannot afford to do this on any grand scale.

If we, as many now do, think that continuing support for the recent immigration here of 12 million to 20 million illegal and poorly educated people from Central and South America is a questionable allocation of resources and a drag on our society, then consider the consequences of trying to directly aid the 3 billion or more people of the same ilk worldwide.

In the short run, one way to shore up our education system is to import those from other countries who are highly educated and extraordinarily motivated. There are tens, if not hundreds, of millions who would jump at the opportunity to immigrate here. It has been demonstrated that these immigrants bring not only a love of education and a strong desire to contribute, but many times they bring brilliant new ideas, seizing upon extraordinary opportunities that Americans simply missed.

Unlike their countries of origin, here they can have the freedom and the resources to act upon their ideas.

As a result, whether they bring skills in engineering, finance, scientific research, education or medicine, they have the opportunity to contribute to, and greatly improve, not only their lot but that of America's and the world's population.

I support vastly increasing our immigration quotas for the highly educated now, because for America, as a nation and as a people, worldwide competition in all forms is rapidly increasing. Time is of the essence, so let's not squander this 21st century leadership opportunity.

Richard Rychtarik

LAS VEGAS