Legalize Aliens

Regarding INS’ 300 new officers:

It’s commendable to fight crime in our cities and to have a system to track illegal aliens that perpetrate crime.

It is, however, unfortunate to have a government policy of persecution directed at a people whose only “crime” is that they are poor and want to work. And work hard at jobs very few of our citizens are willing to do.

Let us, as a nation, stop the degradation of our poor neighbors. Reinstate the bracero program and let these people live in dignity instead of constantly looking over their shoulder in fear of capture. They are not criminals. What is criminal is the way we, as a society, treat them.

Further, they come back--deportation after deportation--determined to work.

This whole process costs us a great deal of wasted money that could be better spent elsewhere.

The farm system of the southwestern United States would collapse without migrant labor. Let’s do the honorable thing and make it legal for them to be here.

I’m still bemused by the irony that this was Mexico and now Mexicans are illegal aliens.

RAYMOND ELLSTAD, Encinitas