Immigration Without Controls Is a Disaster

Re “A Loud ‘Yes’ on Health Care,” Nov. 11:

Your editorial said that the root of Los Angeles County’s health care problem is the number of uninsured people. You must know the root of our poverty level is uncontrolled immigration, a disaster The Times has enthusiastically supported for decades. Overpopulation by the poorest and least skilled has destroyed our urban centers, schools and, of course, the health system.

There have been no direct county tax increases on property owners lately because the politicians found they could offer endless “tax-free” bond issues instead. I counted $54 billion worth, including interest, in the recent election. We need a moratorium on most immigration to get our whole infrastructure back on track [and] balance budgets.

Andy Kerr

Laguna Woods

*

I am 73 years old, and my husband is 82. We recently had to sell our little home of 41 years and buy in a retirement community. Because of Proposition 13, we are supposed to keep the same tax level as before. However, the property tax wolves are howling at our door. We had to give them $1,000 more, which they claim will be refunded to us “when your property tax papers are adjusted.”

Your newspaper has always been pro-illegal immigration. It is time you admit that the enormous increase of poor people is causing a crisis in health care, among other things. You mention that most employers don’t provide health-care plans. Why should they, when cheap labor keeps pouring in over the border and the taxpayers pick up the tab? Do you think it is fair that little old people like us on a fixed income should be paying for illegal aliens’ health care?

Moreover, the property tax increase won because apartment dwellers outnumber property owners. They have been led to believe they are not affected by property tax increases.

Haydee Pavia

Laguna Woods

*

Re “Immigrants Fearful to Come Forward, Latino Leaders Say,” Oct. 24:

Your article quotes the director of a suburban Montgomery County [Md.] social service agency as saying he would discourage his people from giving the police information regarding the sniper investigation if “witnesses are going to be deported.”

I am outraged! Outraged that this man would sacrifice the lives of innocent citizens so these immigrants will not jeopardize their illegal status in our country. This way of thinking further inflames my anger over the tidal wave of illegal immigrants in this country.

Further, in the same article, you write that “some police agencies are not obligated to hand over law-abiding undocumented migrants to the INS.” Am I the only one who sees the irony in this statement? Do we not understand that the term undocumented immigrant is an L.A. Times euphemism for illegal alien?

Carol Thompson

Anaheim Hills