Problem of Illegal Aliens

Once again, The Times’ editors have chosen to be selective with the facts concerning my proposals to reform our immigration policies. The problem is not immigrants--the problem is illegal immigrants, a crucial point that your editorial writer chose to ignore almost altogether.

I support generous legal immigration, believing that newcomers to our society can make a tremendous contribution. But I also believe that the United States has a right to determine how many immigrants we can accept every year, and clearly we have lost control over our borders.

Each day, on the average, an estimated 6,200 people enter our country illegally. Over the course of a year, this is equivalent to the population of Orange County slipping into the U.S. illegally.

Another problem is that thousands of non-legal residents each year deliberately have their babies in the United States because those children automatically become U.S. citizens. In doing so, they are able to collect generous welfare benefits, courtesy of the American taxpayers, and also guarantee that their families will become legal U.S. residents as soon as that child turns 21.

These problems need to be addressed, which is why I have introduced a package of bills to halt illegal immigration, including increasing the size of the Border Patrol, curbing document fraud and stopping the payment of federal welfare benefits to illegal aliens. While The Times considers my proposal to restrict birthright citizenship to the offspring of mothers who are legal residents to be “unusual,” actually it is our policy that is unusual. Only a handful of other nations around the world have the same birthright citizenship policy that we have, and my proposal is still far more generous than the vast majority of nations.

Lastly, I’d like to point out that I agree with The Times that Congress should give California the money the state is owed under the 1986 immigration bill. I voted against the appropriations bill dealing with this issue because the money had been deleted.

REP. ELTON GALLEGLY

R-Simi Valley