Ditching the Border Ditch

Why is the U.S. government going to dig a ditch to protect us from the waves of immigrants washing across our southern border? What will this really solve?

While it is clear that the Otay Mesa area is experiencing the stress of a large influx of migrants, building a ditch will only drain the community’s pasture lands, not stay this insurgent tide.

The vast majority of immigrants come to the United States because of their experience of poverty and war. Until this bitter reality is removed, the flood across our borders will only pour in at another point.

The United States could help the reality of poverty in Mexico, Central, and South America by assisting these countries to develop job opportunities within their own borders.

The aim of U. S. assistance should be to bring about economic self-sufficiency. The ultimate goal should be to improve the quality of life for people whose only crime in coming to the United States is wanting to survive.

Further, U. S. assistance to these nations should be based upon the clear understanding that those nations that receive such aid operate in the democratic tradition which allows free elections and does not subject its own citizens to torture and government by terror.

Such policies, though slower and more difficult to implement, will have far more effectiveness in the long run to stay the tide of illegal immigration than the rather simplistic solution of digging a ditch.

CHARLENE McCARTNEY

Ramona