The Minutemen and the Battle Over Immigration

Re “A Dangerous Line in the Sand,” editorial, March 31: One has to ask, if the federal government abrogates its duty to protect and defend the borders of the United States, why shouldn’t private citizens pick up the slack?

You call these “Minutemen” vigilantes, but I call them concerned Americans filling an historical role as citizen militia. If the government won’t protect us from these hordes of foreign criminals (yes, they call it illegal immigration because it is, in fact, illegal), then it falls to us to protect ourselves and our property as best we can.

Merry Bierd-Dobbins

Dallas, Ga.

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God bless the patriots who make up the Minuteman Project. While others from Washington to Los Angeles stand around wringing their hands and whining that “somebody needs to do something,” these brave men and women got off their duffs and are doing something.

This sends a clear message to Washington -- Americans are tired of lawbreakers and those who aid and abet them. If this country is not worth standing in line for, then please stay home and demand that your own leaders do something about the economy besides just pointing north.

June Venable

Georgetown, Texas

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All the vigilantes and border patrols that can be mustered will not stem the immigrant flood.

The Times failed to mention the one single measure necessary to do so -- strict and prohibitively heavy penalties for businesses, households, individuals or institutions that hire illegals. Suitably heavy fines would fund the program. If you make jobs and benefits available, they will come. If there are no jobs -- if no one dares hire them -- they will stay home!

The labor force now filled by “illegals” could be preserved by the immediate amnesty of all current workers.

They would be issued counterfeit-proof visa cards similar to, but distinguished from, a driver’s license. New workers would be recruited through renewable visas and would be encouraged to work toward citizenship. Workers without proper visas would be immediately deported and the employer fined sufficiently to prevent future temptation.

John A. Saylor

Long Beach

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Re “Posse Is Headed for the Wrong Roundup,” Points West column, April 1: Those of us opposed to the illegal invasion of this country by Mexico have long addressed our complaints to our elected officials and the companies that make a practice and a profit from hiring illegal aliens. To no avail.

They were willing to dismiss our complaints as “racist” while our schools failed to educate our children, our neighborhoods turned into slums, our blue-collar jobs disappear and our emergency rooms closed to accommodate this illegal workforce. We aren’t the ones who hire them, we are the ones who suffer the consequences of our government’s failure to do its job. How about asking the Mexican government why the only resolution it can find to solve its own social problems is to ship its unskilled, illiterate workforce to the United States?

Judy McLaughlin

Simi Valley

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Re “Department Clarifying Rule on Immigrants,” March 31: It’s about time that the well-intentioned policy instituted by former Police Chief Daryl Gates comes to an end. In the meantime, frustrated law enforcement people have had to stand by and helplessly watch the illegal alien street gangs thumb their noses. Deporting has been a charade. Often some of the same characters have been deported numerous times only to soon reappear to continue their depredations against decent society.

Despite the naysayers, this policy change will give law enforcement officials the long-needed means to help put an end to gang outrage on the streets of the city.

James Kerr

Laguna Beach