I was concerned when I read the editorial in Tuesday's North County Times ("Melting pot boils over").

The editorial said that politicians who are trying to pass new immigration laws are "politicians who seek to divide the American people." It also stated that the protests of more than 1,200 students who walked out of North County schools were sending a message to not divide our society for political gain.

I don't think any leaders of this nation set out to pass legislation that is meant to divide our people. I don't think that the leaders of this country are going to pass laws to the detriment of the people simply for political gain. The real question is whether the actions that Latino people are taking not only in North County but also across the nation are the right things to do.


If the law in question was passed, would the government go around door to door snatching illegal immigrants from their jobs, way of life, or even legal U.S. citizen children? I doubt that would be the case. The government would not spend the time, money or effort to commence with that sort of thing. Also, is the law specific to Latino illegal immigrants?

Clearly most of the illegal immigrants in North County are Latino, but certainly not all of them are. It seems the protests have turned from anti-legislation into a Mexican national pride rally.

Certainly the right is there for anyone to assemble for any reason, and I am not suggesting that people should not be allowed to assemble at all. However, the motives of the droves of flag-waving, tortilla-throwing protesters I believe should be questioned.

Tuesday at Vista High School the entire school was put on lockdown two separate times, and seniors were not allowed to leave campus for lunch as usual. In fact, anybody who left was not allowed to come back during school hours. This kind of disruption should not be part of a protest, and the fact that more than 1,200 students walked out of school to protest also cost the schools serious money.

Schools get money from the federal government for each student who is present each day. If 1,200 are missing, the schools take a serious hit. And in these times of budget cuts and cost slashing, this is a costly price to pay for people to "protest."

Overall, I don't believe there should be this kind of protesting going on ---- people fearing that the government is going to take away relatives and take away their jobs.

In reality, the government is only trying to tighten up security and stem the flow of illegal immigrants each day from Mexico. If anything, the protesters should be wary of a backlash of people getting fed up with the disruption that the protests are causing and actually support the bill when they usually wouldn't think twice about it.

Drew Chamberlain is a senior at Vista High School.

At least we know one student understands whats going on!
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