LIKE MANY contributors to the contentious immigration debate, from Governor Carcieri on down, The Journal appears to have a half-hearted commitment to the rule of law, tempered by a desire not to offend anyone’s sensitivities (“The immigration raids,” editorial, July 23).

The Journal’s comments on Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids at Rhode Island courthouses attempted to balance support for enforcement of existing law with concerns of government contracting with private businesses. The bizarre implication is that the hiring of illegal immigrants is some kind of market failure, rather than a symptom of poor government policy and implementation.

The Journal goes on to make the rather fantastic suggestion that if all court janitors were drawn from the ranks of state employees, we might be better off.

Hmm . . . Would those be the same ranks from which immigrants working at the Division of Motor Vehicles were selling fake licenses to drug dealers and illegal aliens?

This obvious anecdote to the side, the clear advantage to private contractors cleaning the courthouses is not just “everyday low prices.” If the companies involved did not exercise due care in their hiring practices these contracts can be terminated — which is just what has happened. Have we been able to similarly remove the management at the DMV that allowed for those illegal activities?

But this isn’t the first time that government has failed in its duty to enforce immigration law. The rate of immigrants’ receiving public assistance in Rhode Island has exploded, despite longstanding laws that dictate deportation for immigrants who become dependent on government.

Thus, the status of a significant portion of legal immigrants is actually in question and the governor, The Journal and the immigrant community refuse to acknowledge this economic elephant in the kitchen.

Through the 1970s, immigrants were less likely to rely on public assistance than natives, but by 1980 they were more likely to be on the dole. The welfare reform of 1996 tried to change all that, stating relevantly: “[A]liens within the Nation’s borders [are] not [to] depend on public resources to meet their needs, but rather rely on their own capabilities and the resources of their families, their sponsors, and private organizations.”

Despite the clear statements of this legislation signed by President Clinton, the evidence is overwhelming that taxpayer subsidies to immigrants are growing in leaps and bounds, and this parallels a demographic shift in immigration toward less-skilled workers. These trends, while well categorized by shops that lean toward tighter borders (e.g., the Heritage Foundation and the Center for Immigration Studies) are echoed by the New Americans study for the Congressional Research Service and by the extensive work of George Borjas at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

It is for this reason that the Ocean State Policy Research Institute (OSPRI) pointed out that immigrant sponsors, the ones legally responsible for supporting immigrants, have become the new deadbeat dads. For the temerity of announcing this fact, OSPRI was pilloried by a Journal “investigation” (“Remarks on immigrants raise concerns,” news, May 4). We only wish the comments generated substantive discussion on the topic rather than rhetoric on process.

Undoubtedly, for the sin of not getting the message that this topic is too hot to handle, we will be saddled with the caricature of anti-immigrant xenophobes. But xenophobia is defined as “an irrational fear of foreigners.” If they are taking taxpayers’ money illegally, the fear is not irrational!

Our argument is with government subsidy, not with the nationality of its recipients. We aren’t advocating isolationism but personal responsibility. Thus, we hew to the belief of the late Milton Friedman that open borders are preferable but mutually exclusive with the American welfare state. It isn’t Pat Buchanan’s vision that animates the tension between immigrants and natives; it is LBJ’s “Great Society.”

While there are relevant reforms to contemplate in immigration law, OSPRI sees domestic policy as the key to solving the immigration conundrum. If we do not require that Americans as well as immigrants — as a rule — provide for themselves, take care of their own families, and resort to communities of friends, faith and the spirit of voluntarism for civic advancement, taxpayers will continue to resent these subsidies and see opposition to immigration as one of few practical alternatives for fiscal restraint. This isn’t irrational or xenophobic, it’s reality.

Brian Bishop is director of communications for the Ocean State Policy Research Institute. Susan Carcieri, wife of the governor, is a member of the group’s board of directors, but does not review or participate in the research or writing of commentary pieces.