Tough Situation

I have for some time admired the efforts of Herman Baca, a crusader for Chicano rights. However, Clyde Romney, whom I do not know personally, has accurately depicted the new and crushing wave of massive intimidation that is saturating San Diego’s North County.

For example, not even Chicano residents, illegal Mexican families, nor the sheriff’s deputies, will go near Stage Stop restaurant and grocery store or the Pauma Valley Store in Pauma Valley after 6 p.m. due to the drunken groups of illegal aliens who congregate there, staggeringly panhandling customers while frequent open urination and occasional knife fights go on nearby.

Nor can one drive on the roadways at night for cold fear of being killed or crippled for life due to the illegal who has his first $150 “clunker,” no driving skills, no insurance and 0.3 alcohol level. No rural home is near safe now. Illegals’ marijuana patches are in abundance, the number of dead bodies rising. Sound tough? You bet ya! But absolutely true and easily verifiable.

As the owner of a small ranch in North County I have, this past year, donated hundreds of dollars in clothes and food to poor but very honest illegal “grove” families. A number of times I have been honored to be made privy to serious group discussions by these dear illegal Mexican families, as well as privileged to be the only Anglo invited to their birthday parties, which are highly delightful occasions.

Accordingly, I have seen 12 or 13 persons living in a tiny trailer, eating nothing but fried dough, enduring unbelievable sanitation problems, etc., and I’ve seen the highs and lows in their lives.

But in keeping with Romney’s statement, I have seen the 20% of those illegals who do run in “gangs” of three to five persons, who have in fact become a plague seeking criminal pursuits--just as they probably do in Mexico; and those others, perhaps 10%, who steal and burglarize because they’re hungry, near naked and cold.

Thank you, Mr. Romney. I applaud you for using loud language of bringing this matter to Harold Ezell, the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s regional commissioner.

JAMES L. LOFTON

San Diego