Wednesday, April 18, 2007
It’s wrong to advocate that illegal immigrants need not abide by our laws

I was shocked, but not surprised by tone of the April 4 editorial, ‘‘Enforcing federal immigration laws.”
The editorial staff has consistently taken the approach that illegal aliens, or as The Gazette prefers to call them, ‘‘immigrants,” are a special group that does not need to abide by the same rules of law that American citizens must.

The Gazette supports taxpayer-funded benefits for illegals, including day labor centers, health clinics, driver’s licenses and in-state college tuition. And if that’s not enough, it now advocates having Montgomery County police ignore federally mandated enforcement of wanted illegal alien fugitives.

Police Chief J. Thomas Manger, supportive of The Gazette’s position but still an officer of the law, is having his officers arrest wanted fugitives, even if they are illegal aliens. Keep up the good work!

We pay taxes to have the police enforce the law, and that includes helping federal authorities remove illegal alien fugitives from our streets.

‘‘Building rapport and trust in (illegal) immigrant communities” should not be high on Chief Manger’s list of priorities.

Jill Gershen, Darnestown

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The Gazette’s editorial says that local police ‘‘have more urgent problems” and ‘‘should not be saddled with doing the work of federal agents.”

I assume that, concomitantly, the newspaper believes that people with federal police powers should ignore Montgomery County warrants.

Recently, I walked out of a bookstore reading a magazine I had just purchased and was still glancing at it as I pulled from the curb. In swooped two policemen on motorcycles to give me a $25 ticket for no seatbelt. Then, several days later, I saw four policemen giving seatbelt tickets to people leaving Georgia Avenue for the Beltway (I had mine on).

Urgency is in the eye of the beholder.

Robin Ficker, Boyds

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Mexico has a president who should have the decency and responsibility to take care of his citizens.

There needs to be a meeting with world leaders as to how Mexico’s natural resources can be developed so that it can have a stable economy. The whole world needs to be involved in this crisis. The president of Mexico should take the initiative to do this.

Illegal immigration into this country will not be tolerated, nor will the politicians who allow this or think that we should have a guest worker program. It is time to clean house from top to bottom, and elect people that are going to take care of the Katrina victims, and our senior citizens who need eye glasses and hearing aids (two things that Medicare does not pay for).

Constance Van Hoek, Gaithersburg

http://www.gazette.net/stories/041807/m ... 2327.shtml