Letters to Editor of Orange County (CA) Register:
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/immig ... 6-plan-new

Friday, August 17, 2007
Taking care of business by enforcing immigration law
Letters to the editor for Saturday, Aug. 18, 2007

I was nearly in shock from disbelief when I read about President George W. Bush's plans to enforce our existing immigration laws ["Plan pressures employers," Nation&World, Aug. 11]. While Rep. Dana Rohrabacher was quoted saying "whoop-dee-do," I would think something like "yippe-kay-ay" is more in order. I don't think that we should simply take it for granted that Bush will be successful in this new crackdown. Instead, we need to show our immediate and wholehearted support so he gets the right message and actually follows through.

I am convinced it will work, and our illegal immigration woes can be solved if we just build the fence, patrol our borders and crackdown on businesses that hire illegals. But it won't be easy from the standpoint that so many people have a vested interest in illegal labor and their future votes.

While I love to see Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, squirm, his power to derail Bush's latest plan cannot be taken for granted. He says Bush's new plan will only "make our immigration crisis worse," which only shows how out of touch he really is with the problem. Kennedy shows his true colors that he was never going to try to enforce our laws with his failed amnesty plan. But is it really any wonder why Kennedy is so out of touch?

He never had to live across the street from 20 illegals living in one, single-family house parking their eight cars up and down the street. He never had to think about sending his kids to Anaheim schools where two thirds of the students fail to show even minimum proficiency at English and math. He will never have to wait in a line 20-deep with illegals at a hospital's emergency room. I say more power to President Bush. Go get 'em. Let's show him our full support.

–Randall Berry of Anaheim
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Rethinking the whole system

The Immigration Control Act of l986 delineated the requirements for foreign new hires to work in this country and the consequences for employers who disregarded the provisions of the Act. The Act also provided $850 million to the Immigration and Naturalization Service to implement the law. It is obvious that the Act was flawed and that the $850 million didn't help much to resolve the problems that it was intended to resolve.

The major flaws were that it didn't provide an orderly method to bring in needed help and that it integrated the new hires into our Social Security System, but didn't provide a logical tax requirement for temporary foreign workers.

The Act should be replaced in its entirety with a system that uses a non-governmental employment agency to hire all temporary foreign help. The agencies should be licensed and overseen by a special branch of Homeland Security. The agency should provide services to employers and employees under strict guidelines that satisfy our quotas, labor laws, security and health requirements.

These agencies could operate in a manner similar to our present domestic temporary employment agencies. Added requirements, such as arranging for security screening of new hires (to assure they are added to the Homeland Security database) and payroll tax withholding (for a special tax – formulated for temporary foreign help) to be submitted by the employment agency to a special pocket of the IRS.

The identity of foreign hires should not be by Social Security number, and the program should be entirely independent of our immigration laws.

I believe that a system to hire foreign help, if modeled as outlined above, would simplify the hiring and reduce the stress on the persons hired.

–Jack Gordon of Costa Mesa
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Senators work against U.S. interests

President Bush has finally introduced a plan to address some of our illegal immigration problems. Two of our U.S. senators immediately came forward to say how the enforcement of our laws will make the illegal immigration crisis worse. One senator said how the crops will not be harvested because we will have no workers to do the work. The highlights of the new program say there will be changes in our current seasonal worker program. To be sure this will not occur. However, the senator still says the plan will cause a crisis in the harvest of our crops.

We have had a program in place for many years allowing workers to come to work in the agriculture industry. They work legally when there is work and then return to their country when there is no work. They then return when there are more crops to harvest. This program must not be what some of our U.S. senators want. It seems as if senators want a provision to allow the people who are here illegally to become U.S.-voting citizens in a few years and they are totally against any form of enforcement.

When our president proposes a plan that will finally start to enforce some of our illegal immigration issues and our senators speak out against enforcement of our laws against illegal immigrants.

Something has gone very wrong in our country.

–Rosalie Hines of San Clemente
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Somehow the work got done

Regarding the latest immigration issues, I have sent letters to Senators Dianne Feinstein, and Barbara Boxer to ask some simple questions. In the 1960s and 1970s, how was it possible for Americans to have access to fruit and vegetables? How did lawns get mowed? How did restaurants buss tables? How did cars get washed? The replies I received were the usual form letters, that did not address these issues.

When I was young, we were able to fight a war that makes Iraq look like a street mugging, and simultaneously send several missions to the moon. Oh, and by the way, we also did all those things our Senators won't talk about, all by ourselves.

Our Senators must think our entire generation should have died of scurvy while driving home from disgusting restaurants, in our unwashed cars and that we would have parked next to very tall grass.

–Art O'Hare of Irvine