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L.A. Sanctuary Resolution

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The irresponsible sanctuary vote of the City Council to flout the law, instead of trying to change it, may at least have the benefit of helping to bring the whole illegal immigration problem to the forefront, where it can receive open debate by the public and action by the Congress.

After all, this problem will have a more serious long-term effect on the country than will issues such as tax reform. However, unfortunately, as with the national debt, the hard choices are continuously postponed because the public does not perceive an imminent danger.

In fact, some perceive an advantage to unrestrained immigration, since it provides cheap labor and it continues a perceived tradition of accepting and caring for the oppressed and underprivileged of the world. While cheap labor is clearly a threat to jobs for legal residents, the morality of exclusion is more difficult to argue, as was demonstrated by the council action.

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To argue for exclusion, one must consider a world in which the United States has perhaps 5% of a rapidly escalating population. Therefore, even allowing our population to be increased by clearly intolerable percentages would not begin to accommodate the needy of the world, or even those that claim political or religious oppression.

Therefore, it can be argued that immigration should be controlled such that it can absorbed without serious damage to schools, housing, welfare services, etc., and without the social tensions that inevitably arise with a large surge of immigration.

D.C. BAKEMAN

Los Angeles

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