I just read a Baltimore Sun "Reader Response" (July 9) in which a Randallstown reader is "appalled" at the supposed right-wing position of The Baltimore Sun on Arizona's policy toward illegal immigrants.
The Randallstown reader says that America was "founded on immigration, slavery and thievery." Is that so?
The immigration she refers to took place long before we were even a nation and long before we had immigration laws (it was more of a migration). Then came Ellis Island, other ports of entry, and our nation's first steps towards controlling (not stopping) immigration, as any sovereign nation should. The industrial northeast was the engine behind our early growth, and there were not many slaves there. The southern states kept slaves, but were still the poorest in the union. Then we fought a war to end the travesty of enslaving human beings on American soil. We realized our mistake and corrected it. So say over 600,000 dead who fought over this injustice.
She goes on about how "this country was taken, from the Indians". The aboriginal North Americans were sitting on some of the richest mineral deposits in the world, surrounded by vast natural resources including timber and thousands of rivers streams and lakes, all of which should have been used to advance their civilization, yet they did not use these resources at all. While European cities were developing into hubs of commerce and culture, North America remained practically unsettled. Native North Americans simply did not advance as Europeans had, and took no precautions to protect their culture or the land they stood on. It's not your land unless you can defend and hold it.
As for her comments on immigration, nobody is against immigration. We are against illegal immigration. If a person is here illegally, they should live in fear of being caught, just like any other criminal, and they should suffer the consequences of breaking our laws when they are caught. Which in this case, is deportation. As Americans we should make it as difficult as possible for criminals (illegal aliens) to live among us. The most effective step would be to impose severe fines and other penalties on companies or individuals that hire illegal immigrants.
What about the millions of persons from foreign lands that have come to this country legally? They entered America according to our laws and became Americans by the naturalization process established by the Congress of the United States of America. Why should others be allowed to enter our country without our knowledge or permission, and remain here illegally? If the first thing a person does when they enter our country is to break the law, then that issue must be addressed before anything else. They should be apprehended, detained and deported until they have completed our established process of immigration and naturalization. Do people really disagree with that?
The Randallstown reader ends by saying that we should patrol and protect our borders, but implies by her previous statements that if a person can somehow get past those patrols and into the U.S. they should be allowed to stay. I have yet to hear a cogent argument for illegal immigration. I suspect that's because there isn't one. Anyone wishing to enter the United States must do so according to our established process. If they circumvent this process, it is a violation of U.S. immigration law and should be prosecuted like any other crime-period.
Russell Piazza, Baltimore