No Place Here for Illegal Immigrants

Your Aug. 25 article on illegal alien women in Orange County was insulting to the majority of your readers. Californians aren’t interested in the aspirations of illegal aliens. They want to know why the government can’t seem to keep the aliens out or to identify them and send them home. Your article reported on the finding of a study that showed that most illegal residents want to stay here. Are your readers supposed to cheer and say, “That’s OK, then”?

The study was methodologically flawed, because among other things the phone survey technique missed illegal aliens who are migratory and others who have no phones. But, even the flawed results are alarming enough. The calculation that 3.7% of women 18 and older in the county are illegal aliens implies that about 35,000 residents are female illegal aliens. The male illegal aliens are presumably even more numerous.

Even though the illegal alien women say they are not using much welfare, that is not much comfort to the taxpayer. Any welfare use by illegal aliens is too much; their presence is against the law, and so is their use of welfare. The largest cost associated with illegal aliens is in educating their children. Why did your article not discuss how many children these illegal aliens have in school? How many children have been born here at taxpayer expense?

JOHN L. MARTIN

Federation for

American Immigration Reform

Washington