I read “Safe Havens good for Santa Maria” (Pedro Reyes, Jan. 19) with interest. I have had an extreme interest in the subject of illegal immigration for many years, and since the time that I was almost killed by a twice-deported illegal alien who returned to be with his family and drove drunk, hitting me. I am now an activist in the Central California Immigration Reform (CCIR), and like most Americans, I am strongly against unscreened illegal immigrants coming here in violation of our immigration laws. I am in favor of legal immigration so we know who our immigrants are, and so we can eliminate most of the undesirable criminal types.
All valid studies on illegal immigration have indicated that the negative effects of illegal immigration are much greater than the very few positive effects. I resent our news media constantly referring to immigrants only when covering this issue. This is especially true of the major Spanish news networks that are trying to blend illegal immigration with legal immigration by never using the word “illegal” when covering the subject.
Years ago, I attended a Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) convention. This is an organization that champions the rights of the undocumented. It made me furious to hear one speaker suggest to counter critics of undocumented immigrants by referring to them as racists. Since polls show about 90 percent of Americans are against illegal immigration, I suppose the vast majority of Americans should be considered racists? This would also include the 125,000 legal immigrants we take in from Mexico yearly who abide by our laws and immigrate legally. They resent illegals who did not abide by our laws. In total, we admit about 1.2 million immigrants worldwide each year, even if there are not enough jobs for many who are unskilled or semiskilled. Our government seems to want to import poverty.
I find it ironic that those who champion the rights of our undocumented march on Cesar Chavez day, considering that he was strongly opposed to illegal immigration because it lowered farmworker wages in the Central Valley and elsewhere. The only reason he finally came out in favor of Reagan’s amnesty in 1986 was because it was promised to be the last and final amnesty, and that immigration would be enforced thereafter. Does our government ever lie to us?
I wonder why the author didn’t bother to mention the terrible gang problem here and associated crime? Or how there are not enough jobs for our citizens? What about our overcrowded schools here due to children of illegal immigrants who just keep arriving across our wide-open borders in many places?
In addition, as elsewhere, Santa Maria has a big drug problem which is made worse by too much unemployment, too many minimum-wage jobs, too many high school dropouts, and in general too many people, especially illegal aliens. It’s more politically correct to call them undocumented workers, although not all of them work.
Affordable housing is another problem made worse by too many immigrants. As the shortage gets worse and worse with time, rents are being driven much higher than the average family can afford.
Admittances to the emergency room at our hospital by people who never pay and get free health care is very expensive and the reason hospital costs are so high for those who are forced to pay. It is interesting to note that the law requires any person checking into the emergency room must be admitted, which is only right. However, it is in violation of patients’ rights to be fingerprinted so the hospitals know who they are. At present, it is a waste of time for hospitals to try to collect, because illegal aliens use all kinds of different names, thus making it impossible to know who they really are.
And a major problem is that there are too many people on welfare, and that includes everybody, not just illegal aliens with their American-born children. Once an illegal alien has just one child born here, they can get all kinds of welfare benefits, including getting on the Section 8 housing subsidy list. Welfare inspectors are too few to handle all the fraud cases reported, like too many people living in a subsidized housing unit. Also since you can buy any false document you want in Mexico or parts of Los Angeles, it makes it even more difficult for the inspectors to do their jobs. Unfortunately for the taxpayers, many get around the law because they use violation of civil rights as an excuse and they are thus allowed to escape arrest for the fraud they commit. Now there is a new law in California that does away with the old law. The new law prohibits welfare from being cut off from a woman who gets pregnant after being charged and convicted of welfare fraud.
Aside from farm work, it isn’t just for our low-income citizens who are deprived of work, because a contractor using illegal alien labor outbids a contractor who abides by the law and doesn’t hire them. That has happened over and over again. One of the most publicized cases was hundreds of mostly black janitors in Century City, a giant office complex, who were earning good wages. They were laid off when another contractor using illegal aliens at minimum wage got the contract. The news outlets covered this big time, but nothing was ever done to rectify the problem. Certain powerful, well-funded lobbies prevented justice. Isn’t it pathetic that our representatives in Congress are allowed to sell their votes to special interests? What kind of a democracy or false democracy do we have?
Many problems could be solved if our federal government would begin to enforce our immigration laws. This issue is so lopsided and the American people are so angry that they elected a man not qualified to be president to that office. If it wasn’t for this illegal immigration issue, he would have never had a chance. The other side completely underestimated the extreme anger of the vast majority on this political issue.
We must stop the subsidy of farm labor by requiring farmers to use the H-2A Farm Workers Visa Program so our needed farm labor can come here legally after being screened, fingerprinted, etc., in their country prior to entry. The farmers need this labor because American workers won’t do the very hard work for what it pays. At present, farmers like things the way they are so they can take advantage of cheap labor and not be forced to abide by the rules of H-2A by providing insurance and other benefits to their workers. Our illegal immigrants have no other choice but to accept the low wages if they want to eat and provide for their families, which are sometimes large families. Many things in this life are about money. Didn’t Nixon once say that to learn the truth you need to follow the money?
Sally Rodriguez is a member of Central California Immigration Reform, which is unaffiliated with the Federation for Immigration Reform. Send your thoughts to letters@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 2-9, 2017.