Logical Ways to Control Immigration

* The editorial “Put the Bucks Along the Border” (April 27), remarkably states that The Times has “argued that it makes no sense to try to control illegal immigration” at a checkpoint 62 miles inside the country. It is a remarkable statement because the argument of The Times itself makes no sense.

Nowhere in the editorial does The Times set forth how the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is to cope with the thousands and thousands of aliens who are able to infiltrate the first line of defense at the border if there are no secondary barriers like the checkpoint if, as The Times urges, all Border Patrol officers should be sent to the border.

The 2,500 miles along the southern border cannot be sealed even if the government does increase the Border Patrol significantly.

Many thousands of aliens will still infiltrate illegally. The Border Patrol cannot be at all places at all times, even with augmented personnel.

A logical and necessary strategy is for INS to monitor and guard the few highways leading north from the border, and which necessarily must be used by the smugglers in transporting illegal immigrants into the hinterlands.

The Times refers to the checkpoint as “largely ineffective and even dangerous.” The checkpoint is proximate to the border and a necessary adjunct to border immigration control.

Additional immigration officers at the border may slow down and make it more difficult to enter illegally, but will not materially impede entry along a 2,500 mile stretch of border.

The checkpoint must be looked upon as an integral part of the border defense against illegal entry. Once the alien is able to get beyond the checkpoint and into the big industrial cities, it is like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack, as evidenced by the recent amnesty program that granted permanent residence to more than 2 million aliens who had eluded detection for several years.

The Times asserts that the checkpoint is “even dangerous.” It is presumed that this assertion refers to accidents that have occurred when the smuggler with a load of illegal aliens seeks to crash through the checkpoint, or it may refer to the dangers the illegal immigrant may encounter if he/she seeks to walk around the checkpoint or through inhospitable terrain.

It is a senseless disservice to U.S. law enforcement for The Times to argue that we should walk away from our enforcement responsibilities at a checkpoint because the smuggler or the illegal alien, in the act of violating our laws and, by his own action, might encounter danger. The argument of The Times is but another example of the softness toward law violators, resulting in increased law violations and lack of respect for our laws.

JOSEPH SURECK

Dana Point

* The editorial about the elimination of San Clemente checkpoint makes a lot of economic sense.

The checkpoints in the United States are bad for business. Every time I pass through one of them, it reminds me of a Nazi-type of government rather than a democracy.

The coalition of organizations defending the undocumented workers should pressure Congress to eliminate the San Clemente checkpoint at once.

At the base of these efforts are the lessons learned from the Jewish people in Germany of the 1930s: If we permit one group of workers to be used as scapegoats for the economic failures of a government without defending their rights as workers, what is to prevent us from becoming the next scapegoats? If we do not stand together now, who will be there to stand beside us tomorrow?

JAIME B. VEGA

Santa Ana

Jaime Vega is project director of the One-Stop Immigration & Educational Center of Orange County.