Proposed Immigration Moratorium: Time to Close U.S. Borders or Not?

This is in response to the article “Proposed Immigration Ban Outrages Latinos,” (June 23). It appears there are still many people out there who are missing the point. The issue is not discrimination against Latinos in particular, nor the Chinese, nor any other minority group. The issue is that right now America is in the midst of a debilitating depression, and we can’t afford to spend money on people who are not citizens! Our schools are overcrowded, unemployment is rampant, and our national debt grows by the second. We need to find ways to cut expenses right now and use the money we do have to get this country moving again.

Once America was seen by the rest of the world as a great nation. Now some consider us a Third World country, dangerous, desperate and broke! And yet every year millions of dollars are spent on services to illegal people. Where is this money coming from, and at the expense of whom? The taxpayers, that’s who! It’s time for the American people to take a stand. The time for a ban has come! We need to close our borders, get this country working again, and create a standard of living that is acceptable for all people. Then, and only then, should we reopen our borders to legal immigration.

JACQUELINE LYNDON

La Palma

* Why is it when responsible people speak out on the issue of illegal immigration, they are immediately condemned by activist rights groups who always fail to use the word illegal when referring to whatever immigrant group they are representing?

THOMAS P. LOGAN

Fountain Valley

* The immigration ban proposed by the Orange County Grand Jury reminds me of a story of a family desperately waiting to board a train. When the train stopped at the railroad station, the passengers inside the compartment did not want any new passengers to enter, fearing that it will become too crowded to travel comfortably. The family, anxious to get inside, pleaded with the passengers to allow them only a small space, citing how important it was for them to travel on that particular day. Finally the inside passengers felt compassion for those people and permitted them to board the train.

When the train reached the next station, the same family which joined the passengers at the last stop was standing in the door telling everybody else to go away because it is not comfortable to take any more passengers.

America is a land of immigrants. The members of the grand jury or their forefathers were lucky to have arrived on these shores earlier than now. They now want to stop any new person from entering this country, for they believe it will be too crowded.

Do they have the moral authority to accomplish that?

No one would deny that our borders are out of control, and we must do something to stop the illegal entry of people from all sides of the globe. But banning legal immigration has no justification. It is basically directed at the Asian and Hispanic immigrants who do not seem to fit the mold in the melting pot of America.

RAJEN S. ANAND

Westminster

Rajen S. Anand is chair of the Indo-American Political Assn.