Letters from the backbone of USA
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=650 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=t1fromdatetext>From: Dave Gorak </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t1fromdatetext>Date: Sept. 19, 2007 7:33 p.m. </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t1fromdatetext> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=t1redunderbigheader>LETTER SUCCESSES –Week ended Sept. 15 </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t1thinwhitespace> </TD></TR><TR><TD class=t1letterblock vAlign=top align=left>DO NOT REPLY TO THIS E-MAIL. PLEASE SEND ALL PUBLISHED LETTERS AND QUESTIONS RELATED TO THE LETTER-WRITING PROGRAM TO:
Dave Gorak
Everyone,
--Following is the published letters report for the period Sept. 15
--BUT FIRST: Changing your e-mail address? As soon as you know what it will be, please drop me a note with your name. The automatic notifications never include names.
Steve Prekup in Pennsylvania wants his state and local communities to work with the federal government in enforcing immigration laws; Coloradoan Gary Akers says “catch and release” is not the way to solve the illegal immigration problem; Marci Pinkard in California warns that the North American Union is no fairy-tale; and Barbara Vickroy, also a Californian, says you can’t talk about her state’s worsening water crisis without discussing a population explosion driven by immigration.
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RECOMMENDED WRITING STYLE: We recognize that each of you has the ability to make your own decisions about how to write your letters. NumbersUSA's opinion is that letters are more likely to be published and more likely to help our cause of dramatic immigration reductions if they are written in a temperate, self-controlled way that avoids name-calling and arguments based on race, religion or national origin. A strong use of a few facts, voting records, concise analysis and sometimes humor seems the best way to advance our arguments. We encourage specific criticism of open-border politicians and others, but caution against "in your face" rhetoric. Firm but civil argument tends to get the best results. You, of course, are free to disagree. We applaud all published letters that advocate for our immigration-reduction goals, but we may not disseminate those that move outside the tone that we encourage, a tone that many newspapers include in their own letters to the editor guidelines.
--Thanks so much for your hard work and persistence.
Index:
Midland (Texas) Reporter – Telegram – 9/29
(1) Pat Kennedy
The Intelligencer (Pa.) - 9/9
(2) Steve Prekup
Grant Junction (Colo.) Sentinel – 9/10
(3) Gary Akers
The State (S.C.) – 9/10
(4) Robert Latta
North County (Calif.) Times – 9/11
(5) Doug Bell
Newsday – 9/11
(6) John D. Fickes
Novato Advance (Calif.) – 9/12
(7) Kevin McDonald
The Washington (D.C.) Times – 9/13
(8) ML Pinkard
The Oakland (Mich.) Press – 9/14
(9) Eric Cole
Christian Science Monitor – 9/14
(10) Barbara Vickroy
LETTERS WE’VE JUST RECEIVED
Winston-Salem Journal (N.C.) – 8/5
(11) Thomas Kottke
The Boston Globe – 9/3
(12) Louise Bessler
Kansas City (Mo.) Star – 9/7
(13) Dave Gorak
(1)
Midland (Texas) Reporter-Telegram – 9/9
Illegal immigrants break into country, steal services
If someone broke into your home, would you invite them in, or would you call the police and report an intruder? This happens every day when thousands of illegal aliens come across our borders. They believe they have the right to sneak into our country, mostly at night, some with diseases and illegal drugs and most likely with fake documents. With these fake documents, they can get jobs, walk into our welfare offices and apply for food stamps, free medical, free education and house subsidies, benefits that our own citizens cannot get, all paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
When illegal mothers have babies on U.S. soil, these “babies” become citizens and “legally” eligible for benefits, that our children cannot get. They also use their children’s citizenship as an argument for not being deported. Children are the responsibility of the parents (legal or illegal) and should be required to leave with the parents if they are deported and not left with relatives, strangers or to fend for themselves and end up on welfare and/or in gangs.
With 20-30 million illegal aliens from all over the world having already entered our country illegally, how many more can we allow in legally. The people who have a right to be angry are the people waiting in line “legally” to come to our country. Should there be a limit or do we just “continue looking the other way” and let them come in and continue taking over our culture and language and turn our country into the third-world countries they are coming from?
Midland and surrounding cities have a LOT of non-English-speaking people moving in to work construction and on drilling rigs. Are they here legally or illegally? We don’t know because no one will ask, that’s the federal government’s business! Do the American workers on construction sites and drilling rigs feel safe working with non-English-speaking foreigners? Why is OSHA not concerned?
There are laws that can be enforced locally, but citizens need to insist that their city and county leaders take control, because the federal government is doing nothing!
Pat Kennedy
Midland, Texas
(2)
The Intelligencer (Pa.) - 9/9
Immigration a state, local issue
To the Editor:
In the wake of the execution-style murders of Newark, N.J., students perpetrated by one or more illegal aliens, I am writing to urge Gov. Rendell to follow the lead of New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram and Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt in directing state and local police forces to cooperate with federal immigration authorities and notify them whenever someone arrested for an indictable offense or drunken driving is found to be an illegal alien.
Especially in light of federal inaction in enforcing our laws and securing this country's borders, it is left to the states and localities to protect American workers and citizens from this ever-increasing menace. The largest segment of population growth here is immigration, both legal and illegal, by a large percentage. Just about any domestic policy problem in this country can be traced directly or indirectly to overpopulation: sprawl, pollution, loss of open space, upward spiraling gas prices, overcrowded schools, higher taxes, traffic, dwindling water resources, crime. The least our state and local authorities can do is try to keep illegal alien criminals off the streets, those who already shouldn't be here and further exacerbate the problem by committing crimes. We're 300 million and counting. Responsible, sustainable, legal immigration, coupled with drastically reduced or eliminated illegal immigration, are of paramount importance if we are to have any semblance of our great nation to leave to our children and grandchildren.
Newark was declared by its government leadership to be a “sanctuary city,” thus encouraging illegal aliens to live there; local law enforcement officials were ordered not to notify federal authorities when they came across illegal aliens (a type of “don't ask, don't tell” policy). That is unacceptable. Had that policy not been enacted, and had the local police followed the guidelines mentioned above, those aspiring young students might very well still be with us today, along with countless numbers of other Americans who have met similar horrific ends at the hands of illegal aliens.
Steve Prekup
Sellersville, Pa.
(3)
Grant Junction (Colo.) Sentinel – 9/10
ICE's catch and release
Editor,
I read with great interest the articles in the Sentinel on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 regarding the catch and release of 18 illegal immigrants on I-70 near Loma on Aug.7. First of all, kudos to the Colorado State Patrol for doing their jobs and attempting to carry out the will of the people, i.e., enforcing immigration law. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) never responded to the trooper's call to pick these people up, and eventually told them, "We're sorry, we have no place to put these people". Hence they were simply allowed to go on their way. Were these people merely coming to "do jobs Americans won't do", or were they involved in gang activities, or was there a terrorist or 2 mixed in with the bunch? We will never know.
Regarding ICE's statement that "we have no place to put these people", this certainly appears to be more foot- dragging and excuse-making by the Federal Government that simply refuses (except for an occasional photo-op) to enforce immigration law. ICE did have an arrangement with Garfield County to temporarily house suspected illegal immigrants, but ICE now says they will not allow suspected illegals to sleep on mattresses on the floor, as American citizens are required to do when the jail is crowded.
What's next, ICE will not allow suspected illegals to be housed in jails where the threadcount in the sheets is not high enough?
According to State Rep. Steve King, the Mesa County Jail, which also has an arrangement with ICE to temporarily house suspected illegals, had plenty of room on Aug. 7, and yet ICE never contacted the Mesa County Sheriff's Dept. about whether space was available.
What should be apparent to everyone, is that we have state and local officials doing their darned best to enforce laws that virtually every American would like to see enforced, and a federal agency (ICE), probably working on orders from the very top, doing everything they can to keep those laws from actually being enforced. Is anyone feeling outraged yet?
Gary Akers
Fruita, Colo.
(4)
The State (S.C.) - 9/10
Dear Sir,
I agreed with most of Robert Samuelson’s comments in his article, "Immigration pushing poverty numbers up." He is correct that, "We shouldn't think that our massive efforts to mitigate poverty have had no effect. Immigration hides our grudging progress." We have been importing poverty, mainly from Mexico, through our immigration policies and through illegal immigration. We must stop this nonsense through securing our border with Mexico and by limiting chain immigration. Only our federal government can achieve these two goals.
He also makes sense when he states, "My oft-stated belief is that legal immigration should favor the high-skilled over the low-skilled. They will assimilate quickest and aid the economy the most." Our federal government must make it a priority to allow more immigration by the highly skilled and well-educated, and much less immigration by the low skilled.
I must disagree with his statement that, "As for present illegal immigrants, we should give most of them legal status, both as a matter of practicality and fairness." These illegal immigrants will self-deport if we eliminate the magnets that attract them, employment and our generous social benefits. We owe these people nothing, as they have violated several of our laws by working and living in the U.S. illegally. We must not reward lawbreakers, as it only encourages more crime. Look how well the last Congressional amnesty worked out. It led to the current crisis of having 12 to 20 million illegal aliens in our country.
Robert Latta
Columbia, S.C.
(5)
North County (Calif.) Times – 9/11
Evidence of immigration's impact is vast
It's amazing what people like Dick Eiden will deny in the face of overwhelming evidence of the destructive impact of Mexican immigration on society ("Immigration debate riddled with myths," Community Forum, Sept. 2). Eiden and his North County Forum are as irrational about immigration as some conservatives are about global warming. The evidence can be found in thousands of local and wire stories each year with headlines like: "Clinics seek funding for teen pregnancy"; "Immigrants keep arriving at record pace"; "Mexican immigrants slow to take citizenship"; "Border areas hit hard by health care costs"; "Latinos score lower on SAT than decade ago"; "Cost of illegal immigration to taxpayers nearly $9B"; "L.A. is afflicted by host of urban ills, study shows"; "Poverty soaring in area of Escondido"; "Profile of a troubled neighborhood"; etc.
Last month, Rosa Iris Carachure wept as she told a judge that she had agreed to get into the SUV driven by her drunken husband that resulted in the death of her own 6-year-old son because "in my culture, you do what the husband says." Popular, vocal opposition to illegal immigration is rooted in reading, not racism. Doing more of it might help Eiden overcome his own immigration myths.
Doug Bell
Rancho Penasquitos, Calif.
(6)
Newsday – 9/11
Real immigration policy
Regarding "Immigration issue hurts Republicans" [Opinion, Aug. 27>, I was flabbergasted at Raymond J. Keating's opinion. Keating has somehow melded illegal immigration and legal immigration into a single category. This is the very same thing that the "mainstream media" have managed to do. Immigration, legal or illegal, is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue; it is an American issue.
I believe that had the federal government been doing its job and keeping its promise after the failed amnesty of 1986, this would not even be a topic for discussion. Employer sanctions would have been aggressively enforced, and the borders would have been secured. The most recent attempt by Congress to pass amnesty legislation failed because we'd heard all of those broken promises before, and we were just not buying it again.
I would argue that Republicans did not lose in 2006 because of immigration; they lost because of deficit spending, corruption and the war in Iraq. The vast majority of Republican Senate and House seats were lost to anti-amnesty conservative or moderate Democrats.
John D. Fickes
East Islip, N.Y.
(7)
Novato Advance (Calif.) – 9/12
Illegal immigrants cause problems
Last week's letter to the editor “Immigrants an important resource” stated that people need to know the facts about illegal immigration and immigration law. I couldn't agree more. But the effect would be the opposite of what the letter-writer expects.
People would be mortified to know the magnitude of the problem.
In short, it depresses wages, creates unemployment, increases crime, bankrupts hospitals and causes overpopulation.
Here are the facts: Professor George Borjas of Harvard University has concluded that between 1980 and 2000 wages for less-educated Americans dropped 7.4 percent. Over the past five years, 2 million less-educated Americans have lost their jobs while immigrants have taken 1.5 million jobs. Anyone see the connection? Even the left-leaning Pew Hispanic Center has admitted that wages for Hispanics have declined over the past several years due to an oversupply of cheap labor. Statistics also prove that immigrant families are more likely to use welfare programs than native-born families.
In 2004, 262,105 illegal aliens were incarcerated. Upon release, most of them were not deported due to a shortage of ICE agents to process the deportations. Seventy-three percent of the released criminal aliens committed another crime. Sixty hospitals in California have closed recently, and in the past year Palm Drive Hospital in Sebastopol and Sutter Hospital in Santa Rosa have closed. Sutter cited $25 million in unpaid bills as a major reason for closing.
We need the facts, right? Let's investigate how much of that $25 million was spent on illegal aliens. Let's have the Marin County and Sonoma County sheriffs determine how many illegal alien gang members there are in the North Bay. Then let's find them and deport them. It's the law.
For all of us who consider ourselves environmentalists, let's face the elephant in the room: overpopulation. In the 1950s, average an nual i mmigration (both legal and illegal) was about 200,000 a year. In the 80s it jumped to 500,000 a year. In 2006 it was 1.6 million. Ninety-eight percent of population growth in California is due to immigration. Our current rates of immigration are simply unsustainable.
Make no mistake: over the past 10 years most immigration in California has been illegal immigration. These are the people who want legalization, more accurately know as amnesty. They do not deserve it. On the contrary, we deserve to have our laws enforced. You see, they haven't been for the past 15 years, and that's why we're in this predicament.
Kevin McDonald
Novato, Calif.
(8)
The Washington (D.C.) Times – 9/13
American fairy-tale
As Customs and Border Protection El Paso field office Director Luis Garcia advises agents "to limit inspections of vehicle and pedestrian border crossers as wait times escalate" ("Border checks limited to speed traffic," Page 1, Friday), the Security and Prosperity Partnership globalists are aiming this month to integrate America, Canada and Mexico.
While we're busy pretending to have a border, let's imagine an attack on a fictional country led to a trumped-up war. Let's also pretend the country's leader opened its borders to millions of unchecked aliens, illegal and criminal alike, meanwhile spying on citizens.
Supposedly that would be for the free movement of goods and people across borders and the protection of the country from terrorism. That's funny -- terrorism is neither a place, a thing, nor, even, a certain person or a known set of persons. And spying on citizens while aliens freely come and go?
The leader, dissatisfied with following the country's laws and highest-court rulings, makes new regulations saying he can ignore the old ones whenever he likes, while touting the country's freedom and democracy.
What a strange place.
Even people who know better go along, as if they have turned into robots. Pretending, you know.
It gets stranger still.
The leader continues to be unhappy with the country's Constitution and insists that being the ruler of the land entitles him to end its sovereignty by agreeing to merge it with other countries. Change democracy at will? So then we're pretending he's busy with his ruler friends making a new world order subjugating its citizens' self-determination to a trilateral council. It has a long name -- the Security and Prosperity Partnership.
That North American Union, courtesy of our old evolution-by-stealth alliance -- President Bush and Congress.
Through pretending?
ML Pinkard
Lafayette, Calif.
(9)
The Oakland (Mich.) Press – 9/14
"Mexican truck drivers will endanger American roads"
Our unfit president is at it again. He announced on Labor Day to all hardworking citizens that he is authorizing Mexican trucks access to all U.S.roadways.
What does this mean for Americans? It will allow less regulated, dirty foreign trucks and less monitored drivers to endanger everyone.
They will be unable to read road signs or understand English.
The Mexican drivers will have increased access to bring in more drugs and more illegal aliens. It will cost American truck drivers jobs and lower wages.
This current president is destroying our nation's sovereignty and eliminating more jobs.
Under his watch, more than three million jobs have been outsourced and on his watch more than one million illegals have crossed the border annually.
He refuses to secure our borders or enforce our laws, jails border patrol personnel who try to do their jobs and wants to grant amnesty to millions of illegals.
He insists on increasing our guest worker program and wants to increase our legal immigration, which is three million per year.
Eric Cole
Rochester, Mich.
(10)
Christian Science Monitor – 9/14
California's water woes
Regarding the Sept. 12 article, "Water crisis squeezes California's economy": As a 70-year resident of the bottom end of California's water-supply pipeline, I read with great interest the article about our approaching water crisis. In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, blame was placed on both man-made causes and natural disaster.
The litany of blame in California's water shortage doesn't resemble that at all. For all of his tough-sounding talk about "hiding from the problem," the head of the Association of California Water Agencies didn't mention one man-made aspect of the problem here: our immigration-driven population explosion. Before the inevitable confluence of natural and man-made disasters truncates southern California's water supply, I hope to have moved out of state, where I can read the postdisaster blame machine with detached sympathy.
Barbara Vickroy
Escondido, Calif.
LETTERS WE’VE JUST RECEIVED
(11)
Winston-Salem Journal (N.C.) – 8/5
Indefensible
Guest columnist Jose Isasi, like Geraldo Rivera, can be expected to employ the usual trite, emotional and erroneous arguments to justify illegal immigration - to defend the indefensible ("Good Call for Immigrants, Community," July 28).
Sheriff Bill Schatzman, who I assume took an oath to defend the citizens of Forsyth County, has announced that his department will not apply for funds to implement the federal program that allows his deputies to inquire about the immigration status of detainees. This, according to Isasi, will go a long way to generate "trust" in law enforcement. I guess if he had announced that deputies will no longer be arresting bank robbers, this would create "trust" with that group too. After all, they too are only trying to better their lives.
The bottom line is clear: Illegal immigration is organized crime and corruption, and that's why Sheriff Schatzman is wrong! He has opted for political expediency where courage was required, and that is why I will not be voting for him anymore..
Thomas Kottke
Kernersville, N.C.
(12)
The Boston Globe – 9/3
Give authorities medal for gang raids
I am writing in reponse to your rcent coverage of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids ("Immigration raids target violent gang: Page A1, aug 29).
I live in Everett where this gang is alive and well. Our local police are doing the best they can to stem the activity, but it is only through coordinated efforts such as these raids that we can begin to restor the quality of life in our small cities. These gangs steal cars, coduct drug activity, and have either made some of our local parks unsfe or destroyed them. Their very presence has a very negative effect, which ultimately affects the neighborhoods and our children.
I applaud these law enforcement efforts and hope they continue on a regular basis. The average citizen is sick and tired of having to put up with this insanity. The folks at ICE deserve medals for doing the most important job in our county: protecting our citizens.
Louise Bessler
Everett, Mass.
(13)
Kansas City (Mo.) Star – 9/7
La Raza convention
In response to the Sept. 1 editorial “A blow to convention business?”: Has anyone besides me wondered why the media are so quick to label the Minutemen “controversial,” “vigilantes” and “militant” but don’t seem at all uneasy about giving large amounts of air time and print space to the National Council of La Raza?
Where are the published reports about the Minutemen engaging in vigilante activities? You won’t find any because there are none, but that’s not enough to deter reporters and editors from forcing their biased opinions on their readers and viewers.
The last time I looked, the Minutemen had not violated any federal, state or local laws. And park board member Frances Semler has a constitutional right to express her views through an organization that shares them.
Bullies like La Raza President Janet Murguia should leave Semler alone and stick to what they do best: aiding and abetting illegal aliens. What’s next on Murguia’s agenda? Demanding that Gov. Matt Blunt resign his office because he ordered state troopers to check the immigration status of people they arrest?
Dave Gorak
Executive director, Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration
LaValle, Wis.
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