Illegal immigration, water transfer

In response to “Fewer migrants caught crossing border” (Dec. 7): It’s terrific news that apprehensions of illegal immigrants at the border are at their lowest level in 42 years. But if your editorial board thinks that’s a reason to ease up on border enforcement and consider some form of immigration amnesty, it’s mistaken. There are still 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., and 8 percent of births in the U.S. are to illegal-immigrant parents.
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A 2004 study by the Urban Institute found that while illegal immigrants constitute 3 percent of the nation’s population, they account for 17 percent of its inmate population. And a study by the Center for Immigration Studies projected that legalization would cost taxpayers $29 billion for public benefits such as the earned-income tax credit, Medicaid, food stamps and housing – services already available to illegal immigrants with U.S.-born children.

So, when planning holiday season gift-giving, please cross immigration amnesty off the list. – Doug Bell, Rancho Peñasquitos
Up in the air

In response to “Court supports S.D. water transfer” (Dec. 8): I was astounded to see Imperial County argue air quality as a basis to block the agreement to transfer water from the Colorado River to San Diego. Yes, increasing the exposure of the Salton Sea’s bed to air will create more desert surface to blow in the wind. However, the pollutants from the decrepit New River and Alamo River are still there, and still arriving, and so pollution is a problem in the Imperial Valley, whether of the air, water or ground and whether or not the agreement is changed or canceled.

I have had family continuously living in Imperial Valley for almost 94 years and I studied the air quality there when I attended Imperial Valley College during the mid-1970s. What Imperial County probably concealed from the Court and your paper is (a) that historically (when I lived there 35 to 38 years ago) the particulate levels were over twice those in downtown Los Angeles, and (b) that there could not be any substantial degradation of the already dismal air quality there from more exposed seabeds given the air pollution already caused by windblown desert sands, tilled fields, feedlot feed, bedding and manure, primitive field burnings and aerial spraying of fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides by corporatized agribusiness interests dominating agriculture there. I conducted my study because I spent five continuous months there with debilitating respiratory illness that has had no parallel before or after in my life.

My decided opinion is that Steve Peace’s plan should be fervently pursued; it would provide for a swap of San Diego County effluent and Colorado River water, which would remove the city of San Diego’s despicable dumping of the effluent into the Pacific Ocean, provide a source of potable water for San Diego -- avoiding full reclamation of effluent or ocean water -- and deliver to Imperial Valley agricultural interests the water it needs with limited reclamation. – Robert Burns, Ocean Beach

Posted in: Alabama immigration law, laws on immigration, legal immigration