Sorting Out Jobs and Immigration

Re “Bush, Fox Put Their Rift to Rest,” Oct. 21: It seems that Mexico’s President Vicente Fox believes his people are going to migrate to the U.S. The problem with that is that I don’t remember having a national discussion here in the U.S. about it, or any kind of vote at the local, state or national level. Fox needs to focus on providing opportunities, health care and education in Mexico for his countrymen. His belief that the U.S. is the social relief system for Mexico is misplaced.

Richard J. Hardy Jr.

Grover Beach

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I wonder how all the unemployed Americans will feel about President Bush’s statement that there is a demand for labor in the U.S. and a supply of labor in Mexico -- and that somehow that supply and demand should be facilitated. We have millions of jobless here in the U.S.; we do not need to encourage any more illegal immigrants from Mexico to cross the border to fill these supposed jobs. Of course Fox wants to send more of his population to the U.S., and he has the best of the bargain: His people send billions of U.S. dollars back to Mexico and the U.S. gets to provide them with health care, housing, education and transportation.

David and Laura Keyes

Sherman Oaks

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According to “Immigrant Wal-Mart Janitors Arrested” (Oct. 24), the only people so far arrested in the probe of illegal immigrants working at Wal-Mart were 250 illegal immigrants. Those janitors did not simply walk into Wal-Mart stores, pick up their mops and start scrubbing floors. Unless the appropriate government agencies take their inquiry into the highest reaches of Wal-Mart, this episode will go down as just another scandal in which those on the bottom rung paid the price while the guys at the top got off.

Joan Walston

Santa Monica