Alien Dilemma

According to your article (Feb. 2), undocumented Central Americans in the U.S. are posing a “vexing dilemma”--in our midst. They have come in large numbers, and many of them resist efforts at repatriation, especially to Guatemala and El Salvador.

However, it is not Central American immigrants that are causing the problem, but a history of skewed foreign policy decisions from Washington. Under the Reagan Administration any government that was not dominated by the United States was seen as a threat. Our policy was a military one which ignored the inequities between poor majorities and the wealthy elites. Since 1980 some 200,000 Central Americans have died violently. Economic deterioration has occurred instead of development; billions of our dollars were spent while the poor got poorer.

We propped up barbarous regimes--especially in El Salvador and Guatemala--governments which could only survive with external U.S. aid and internal death squads. The influx to the United States of large numbers of Central American refugees is the natural result of more than a decade of policies that convinced many Central Americans that their only hope to survive lay in flight to the U.S. To receive these people and give them refuge are in the best tradition of our country.

JAMES E. GOFF

Claremont