Kindness Hurts

Lee Brown, in his article on illegal aliens (“Illegal Aliens Doggedly Pursue a Simple Dream of Frutas,” Oct. 11), is using his kindness to blind both himself and his readers. He is discussing his interaction with two illegal aliens and how he tried to help them with food, money and transportation. But this is when his humanitarian blinders are in place, because he is not helping them, only making the entire situation worse.

Mr. Brown is clearly hurting the two men by lending them a helping hand. It is like leading two innocent sheep to the wolves’ den. These two men, who do not speak a word of English, are supposed to defend themselves against exploitation that goes on in this country?

I’m sure it would be easy for them to get jobs picking fruit. But I am equally confident that they will get paid way below minimum wage in doing so. They could also be used to do something illegal and they would not realize it, due to their unfamiliarity with this country. There are numerous other ways in which these two men in this situation could be taken advantage of.

Helping aliens hurts the American work force. With the large number of Mexican workers entering this country, there will be fewer jobs for native-born Americans. There must be some control over the border or else the flood of cheap, non-union labor will continue to compete with the native work force, causing higher unemployment. This flow of people also brings up housing and transit problems, especially in the border towns.

The hardships that these people place on American society are tremendous. That’s why aiding and abetting aliens is not only unfair, but illegal. The author of the article committed a crime--although it was out of the goodness of his heart. Promoting it through the article makes it worse because now the reading audience may feel it is right to help these people. But they would only be hurting the immigrants and themselves through their kindness.

JEFF McBRIDE

La Jolla