Letters to the Editor: Most asylum seekers don’t qualify for protection. Trump gets that

To the editor: The president’s recent rule change rejecting asylum claims from people passing through any other country on their way to the United States accomplishes what Congress should have done long ago.

The vast majority of migrants seeking asylum simply do not qualify for it. Asylum is designed to assist certain foreign nationals who fear persecution. The reason we have caravans from Central America is because the rules for seeking asylum are broken.

Many asylum seekers are merely looking for a better job. They are economic migrants. They are not be persecuted any more than someone living in Chicago is. They are taking advantage of our broken laws, and we have the Democrats and the establishment Republicans to thank for it.

This avalanche of migrants is entirely the result of Congress failing to do its job.

Nathan Post, Santa Barbara

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To the editor: Your editorial states, “It boggles the mind to think of families fleeing MS-13 recruiters, drug traffickers and extortionists in Honduras or El Salvador trying to resettle safely in dysfunctional Guatemala.”

What should truly “boggle the mind” of every resident in our city is the same day headline on the front page: “Indictments depict a brutal MS-13 faction stalking L.A.”

Nineteen of the 22 defendants indicted by the federal government had entered the county illegally in the last four years, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. President Trump should be given credit for trying to have stronger enforcement of our immigration laws so we know who is entering our country.

It is certainly more than our local officials are doing by declaring Los Angeles a so-called sanctuary city.

Janet Polak, Beverly Hills

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To the editor: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Maybe we should cover the Statue of Liberty while Trump is president.

Roberta Schiller, Los Angeles