Amnesty Raises Legal and Moral Questions

In his Jan. 14 column, “Amnesty Proposal Doesn’t Add Up,” Steve Lopez presents the arguments against President Bush’s amnesty proposal. Although the majority of his column seems fair and logical, when he quotes Harry Pachon of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute concerning the possibility of American investment south of the border, he loses it.

How many American businesses are already invested in Baja, employing indigenous labor from the south of Mexico to work and live in subhuman maquiladora conditions?

Judith Terzi

Pasadena

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The Bush administration proposal granting legal status to undocumented individuals not only rewards those who unfairly cut in the line to get into the U.S. and punishes those who were waiting to enter legally, it has a far more ominous aspect for the American middle class. Under the proposal, employers who claim their search for employees went unfilled can turn to the world’s labor pool for workers. So, for example, a company that looked for and could not find a master machinist or a senior engineer to work for $7 an hour could bring workers from overseas willing to fill such a position.

Kevin A. King

Torrance

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Re “Fox Backs Bush’s Reforms,” Jan. 13: Why shouldn’t Mexican President Vicente Fox go along with the plan? It would relieve some of Mexico’s problems. But it will not help the unemployment problems in the United States.

Why should Mexican laborers be taking jobs that our unemployed could be doing? I’ve heard it said that they are doing work that our jobless would not do. Is there any job that is too lowly for a person to support himself and his family? Those jobs should be offered to able-bodied people who are receiving welfare checks. If they are capable of doing the work, they should do the job. If not, they should stop receiving the welfare checks.

I feel that the responsibility for helping the indigent lies with the nation in which they are citizens. I would rather have our country give foreign aid to Mexico than to allow illegal aliens into our country to work. In checking my dictionary, I see that “illegal” still means “prohibited by law.” Has the term “illegal” been redefined? Or have our laws been changed?

David S. Eicher

Glendale

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Since there has been an ongoing trend to slowly integrate the workforce of the U.S. with that of Mexico, I would suggest the concept of subsuming Mexico into the United States (or vice versa). Look at that vast pool of low-cost labor that would enable us to return all that manufacturing that is currently offshore. And there is a tremendous pool of low-cost labor farther south of the border: Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua. If necessary, we could continue the metastasis southward.

Russell Blinick

Chatsworth

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We invaded the wrong country. We should have invaded Mexico, gotten rid of its corrupt government and used the Mexican oil to help them get on their feet. Open borders? Smells to me like the European Union.

Yolanda Colon

Anaheim