Low-grade immigrants
Rick Martinez’s Nov. 21 column (“Immigrants and the GOP, part II”) was lacking.
Hispanic countries have been treated the most generously with legal immigration to the USA for the last 30 years. Mexico at No. 1 has double the legal slots as the No. 2 sending country. Yet Hispanics break our immigration laws more than triple any other ethnicity. We citizens and those waiting in line to come to the USA legally need not apologize for expecting the rule of law.
In 1986 Ronald Reagan granted an amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants, mostly Hispanic. In 1988 Reagan’s vice president, George H. W. Bush, ran for president and got only 30 percent of the Hispanic vote. In 1996 Bill Clinton as president signed immigration enforcement legislation into law. Yet five weeks later Clinton received 72 percent of the Hispanic vote and defeated Bob Dole.
The Center for Immigration Studies reports federal data. Welfare use is the highest by immigrants from Mexico (57 percent), Guatemala (55 percent) and the Dominican Republic (54 percent). Immigration for the last 30 years has been overly tilted to the low-skilled and poorly educated. This does not favor the USA. It does favor Democratic candidates.
Ron Woodard
Cary
