MAILBAG - July 25, 2006

Immigration apologists need to quiet down

I am flabbergasted at the apologists for illegal immigration that appears to be the position Steve Smith takes in his column (“On the Town,” Wednesday).

Aren’t we tired of emergency room closings, bilingual ballots (don’t you have to speak English to become a citizen?), anchor babies, truckloads of drugs, and a permanent underclass of low-paid, poorly educated residents whose home country is somewhere else, not the United States? And this says nothing of the huge cost to us taxpayers for medical care, education, prisons, etc. What do we get for all this grief? Cheap hotel rooms, nannies, meals, carwashes, landscaping? I believe a large part of the illegal immigration problem can be improved in the following ways, in chronological order:

1. Close the border now. This requires a lot of money and commitment; however, it cuts the illegal immigration, drug and terrorist flow. Who, by the way, won’t agree with this action?

2. Develop a national ID card or a data base, or use U.S. passports (state driver’s licenses are to easy to fake). This will allow employers an easy way to be good citizens in their hiring process.

3. Then start “raiding” employers who have chosen to break the law, and I’ll buy the tickets for both Smith and I to witness this “law and order” exercise.

In the meantime, some of the illegal immigrants will get the drift and go home if cheap jobs dry up.

TOM HOUSTON

Balboa Island

A heavenly solution to KOCE problem

It hit me like a heavenly bolt of lightning from the heavens!

While reading Joseph Bell’s column Thursday about the KOCE/Daystar debacle, it came to me almost like a religious experience ? perhaps even divine providence! A “fair and balanced” solution to satisfy the needs of the Word of God Fellowship (Daystar) on one side and those of us who live in Orange County and benefit from KOCE’s wonderful programming: Instead of KOCE, sell them Triangle Square.

JOHN KNECHT

Costa Mesa