T here's no ne ed to cut back the levels of immigrant engineers into the United States, according to six out of 10 engineers responding to our survey.

"This is America. The job goes to the best man," said a U.S.-born senior engineer. "It would be nice if you could speak English, though."

"Without these engineers, our group would be missing 80 percent of the work force," a department head wrote.

"Fifty percent of the new hires in my company come from foreign countries," a Californian agreed. "They work hard with low pay and are applying for immigration through the employer."

Immigrant engineers defend their presence and don't see a need to trim visas.

"I am one," said a British-born engineer. "So I'm biased. I am a good deal for the U.S.-well-educated for zero cost to the U.S., with real-time experience and knowledge. It should be easier for me to get a green card. It's too slow right now, yet my company needs me."

An India-born principal engineer stressed the entrepreneurial contributions made by foreign-born engineers in the United States: "I was part of a small team that grew a company from 70 people to over 300 people. And the jobs were fairly distributed." The problem is not immigration, he said, but "illegal immigration."

A California senior engineer took the industry view: "[We] still do not have enough engineers to meet the current demand. If immigrant engineers can fill the gap, let them."

An engineer, part of the 37 percent who want to cap or trim back immigration levels, is convinced that immigrants "seem willing to accept lower salaries for work."

Another respondent, born in Northern Ireland, thought that salaries were a non-issue. "If the U.S. can pull in the world's top engineers, it is sure to stay technically superior," he said. "Of course, this hurts U.S.-born engineers' salaries. However, it is a necessary trade-off."

Actually, as noted in the Salary chapter of this report, foreign -born engineers in our sample earn more than native Americans. Other studies, however, have indicated that some immigrants start out lower, but gradu-ally make up the difference later on.

"As long as there are U.S. engineers unemployed, then don't let immigrant engineers in," declared a Texas design engineer. "Let the demand for engineers go up and more U.S. students will get into engineering. As the profession gets respect, the dollars go with it."

Some think the United States is draining off the best talent, to the detriment of other nations.

"The U.S. should assist Third World countries in developing their own engineering resources," a reader said.

"The influx of foreign professionals is a brain drain that will ultimately have a profound effect," said a test engineer. "Unless many elect to return to train and serve in their homelands, a sound economy and government in many of those countries will be suspect. Mexico is a good example. The movement by professionals to the U.S. has onl y contributed to political unrest and a weakened Mexican economy."

Finally, one engineer posed the question many of us are asking: "Fully half of the engineers in the company I work for come from either the Far East or India. A few others [are] from countries such as Lebanon or Turkey. Where are the native Americans?"

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