Migrant Workers

Loosely using the term “migrants,” a recent article (“Foreign Felons Plan Targets Illegal Migrants,” Jan. 19) clouded the issue of alien crime. Around North County, migrants is a tag reserved for farm and day laborers who make yearly treks from the interior of Mexico. Blurring distinctions between types of aliens, the article wrongly linked these workers to serious crime.

As police well know, but often choose not to acknowledge publicly, except for illegal entry in search of a living wage migrants are largely law-abiding. The role usually played by them in crime is that of victim, not perpetrator. Day-in, day-out they are preyed on by bandits who “work” border canyons and North County encampments, not to mention by employers who stiff them.

As studies have repeatedly, but sometimes grudgingly concluded, Tijuana-based delinquents who make forays on this side are the ones chiefly responsible for serious crime attributed to aliens.

Anti-immigrant feelings here are so raw that pains must be taken not to promote popular misconceptions. Don’t farm and day laborers already bear the brunt of too much undeserved hostility?

CLAUDIA E. SMITH, California Rural Legal Assistance