Market Forces Drive Illegal Immigration

Peter H. King missed both the “rhetoric” and the “reality” of illegal immigration by a country mile in his July 19 column. The reality is that until the greed in the agricultural industries ran rampant in the late ‘60s, the workers in those industries were of all races, colors and creeds. I went to school in the Yakima Valley in Washington state with the children of those workers. While there were children of Hispanic origin, they and their parents were U.S. citizens and proud of it. The farmers got the illegals far cheaper and pocketed the difference. Now they are dependent on that cheap labor.

The rhetoric is that while the budget and staffing of the Immigration and Naturalization Service have grown to unheard of levels, both INS Commissioner Doris Meissner under Bill Clinton and her predecessor, Gene McNary under George Bush Sr., did everything possible to gut interior enforcement. This was done not for economic reasons but purely for politics. Immigration enforcement, like all law enforcement, at times is an ugly business by its very nature. This is a point the press has never been able to grasp.

Gary Hall

San Diego

King takes aim at the agricultural industry. In fact, for King to explore the depth and magnitude of the immigration problem, he need look no further than his local trendy restaurant--at the busboys and cooks--or look at the maids who make up his bed in the hotels he stays in, or look into the parking lots and sidewalks of every lumberyard and home-improvement store in his neighborhood for illegal day laborers.

The issue of immigration and immigrant labor, on which so many industries besides agriculture and so many of us, as consumers, have come to depend, is far too complex and serious an issue to single out one industry for its reliance on “illegal” help.

I’ve spent 20 years enforcing the labor laws of this state without regard to immigration status. I could have saved King a trip to Fresno.

Jose Millan

Placerville, Calif.