Letters to the Editor: If you want to stem illegal immigration, improve living conditions elsewhere

To the editor: A recently published article documenting the political party divide over Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids initiated during President Trump’s second term in office highlights the very divisive nature of the presidential program (“Californians sharply divided along partisan lines about immigration raids, poll finds,” Nov. 26).

Ultimately, the purpose of the deportation effort is twofold: one, to remove immigrants who gained access to the United States illegally and two, to stop such unlawful border-crossing entirely. Both of these aims hover around the comical and draw near to the delusional. People will always find a way to get around a barrier.

The medical model of treating disease outlined to me by my teachers years ago perfectly explains why this is so.

In medicine, students are instructed to sort out symptoms from cause and to focus their efforts on the latter. Giving a child medication for an ear infection that merely alleviates the painful symptom, rather than an antibiotic for a bacterial cause, is a case in point.

Similarly, expelling immigrants is simply treating the symptom. The cause remains that the environment from which these people come is not supportive of the type of life they want to provide for their spouses, their children and for themselves. America does provide it. More than 100 years ago, my grandparents left Tsarist Russia seeking the Golden Land for their families and they never looked back.

Do you want to stop illegal immigration? Do whatever is necessary to raise the standard of living in the countries from which immigrants come. Treat cause, not symptom.

Bruce Littman, Porter Ranch