Sir:

Perhaps my gripe would be better directed at the Bilderburgers or the Illuminati or the Trilateralists.*
I am more inclined, however, to take my complaint to the leader of these United States.

In the Old Testament (which used to be relevant, I hear) it is said that "without a vision, the people perish." This is, as with most Biblical statements, a multilayered idea. But one of the thrusts of the comment is that without a solidly defined culture, a distinctive people group ceases to be distinctive. Visually, the suggested image is one of a person without skin, their life running out onto the ground in puddles.

Without the continuance of well-defined cultural boundaries, the writer might say, a culture or people, originally well-defined, will evaporate — disperse like steam in the air.

So.

You have failed to make the case, to me, that the mythical Comprehensive Immigration Reform (C.I.R.), which seems to be an "open border" policy buttressed with liberal amnesty and anti-deportation clauses, is a good thing for the United States of America.

Now we understand that your administration has a long history of total ineptitude when it comes to the "making your case" skill. Witness the smoldering resentments among much of the US citizenry over the completely understandable and justifiable "unjust war" in Iraq, for example. Your failure to make the case to the American public cannot reasonably be thought to be 100% the fault of a "biased media."

Yet, sympathetic as I am to the opinions and judgement of the man who is the president at any given time, I can't see the federal government's stance on C.I.R. as reasonable, when the terms of culture and society are considered.

Mr. Bush, our country is being overrun with illegal immigrants and workers at a rate impossible to assimilate. I presume that you and your administration have good reason for seeing this as a good thing, but in California all we see is a state bleeding out in resources, draining economically.

I do not want to imply that our illegal immigrant problem is a problem of race, gender, sexual preference, or hermaphroditism. It is a problem of monies being siphoned out of the state economy and sent to other countries. A problem of emergency clinics routinely — routinely — overcrowded with families seeking primary care for colds and fevers. A problem of sky-rocketing car insurance rates, as myriad uninsured drivers careen and hit-and-run their ways around our freeways and surface roads. Our public education system is diluted and unable to even adequately serve our citizen children, let alone serve them well. Government taxes escalate, wasted on bi- and tri- and multi-lingual documents in triplicate and worse. Our state government is not only charged with serving its citizens, but with serving a literal millions of citizens from other countries, as if this were its duty: to protect and serve anyone who asks, from anywhere, in any amount.

I can't think of a sane rationale for such an expectation of any country's government, or indeed, any institution built on the contributions and work of a dedicated membership.

We don't fault private businesses for marketing to this new niche of unassimilated quasi-citizens. We will fault those businesses that purposely hire and attract illegal workers, because these workers —

— yes; they are good-hearted persons, generally, with families to raise, and quite reasonably seeking life and employment in the United States, the greatest nation in the world —

these workers are not Americans, not invested in this country. They are citizens of other countries (no; I will not pick on the Canadians, even though they are obviously the main problem) working here for the good of their home country, not the United States.

California is dying. But we cannot rely on the illegal worker to even realise what is happening, because the plain truth is this: even a debilitated, dessicated husk of the California I grew up in is far preferable to the country from which these workers come. The illegal worker cannot see the old California, and sees only the teat of the new California.

We do not despair because the culture of California is becoming steadily and increasingly "Canadianized."** We understand that cultures and countries are dynamic; witness the influx of Chinese immigrants, the Irish wave, the Eastern European wave, etc. But now we find our culture is being changed by non-citizens; Balkanized. Persons who want bits of America to be more like their home country. This, despite the fact that their own country is so obviously inferior to the USA that they have left their country to come here to make a better life for their families or themselves, their country falling down on the job of protecting and nurturing its own.

This is why we are tempted to despair. We care about the USA and California. We were born here. Our grandparents came to America to become a part of this great experiment in opportunity. They moved into their several (and legal) immigrant neighborhoods, took jobs, yes — and then learned the language, learned the culture, moved out of their neighborhoods, became part of the weave of nations that is the USA. And in becoming part of the USA, in the main they made the country a better place.

We cannot understand why the influx of illegal, foreign workers — who have no interest in making the USA a better place — is allowed and even encouraged.

Therefore, we submit:

• Where illegal aliens are arrested, they should be deported.
• Where they are pulled over for driving violations, they should be arrested and deported.
• Where they attempt to enroll in school, they should be deported.
• Where they seek medical attention, they should be treated, released and deported.
• Where businesses employ illegal workers, they should be heavily fined, have their business licenses suspended, and for multiple violations, be prosecuted to the extent the law allows.
• Fences should be built along the border to restrict in influx of illegal workers.

In short — the inflow needs to be curtailed while the outflow needs to be increased.

Then:

• The "anchor baby" laws need to be repealed as no longer necessary (cf. the Prohibition Amendment)
  
• Temporary foreign worker laws should be enforced, where temporary workers are registered and allowed.
• Temporary foreign workers should be required to have visas and passports (heck, I had to have a passport to sail on a ship that left and returned to a USA port — and I'm a natural-born citizen!) and
• If there are not laws on the books that require temporary workers to be insured in and by their home countries, there should be.

In short — temporary foreign workers allowed in by legal means need to be monitored in detail, and supported by their home countries to which they owe their allegiance.

Then:

• Immigration opportunities might be streamlined and enlarged, allowing many more people to become citizens of the USA, if that were deemed desirable.

What bothers me, Mr. Bush, is that this sort of stance is seen by many who share your views as being "anti-immigrant" or "anti-people" or "racist" and it is none of those things. I am, rather, "pro-the citizens that have invested themselves in the USA." I am "anti-ILLEGAL infiltration and parasitization of my state and country."

But the word "ILLEGAL" seems to be mysteriously and infuriatingly incomprehensible to many of my philosophical opponents on this issue. It seems as though they have no concept of what the word means. I might as well be saying "GOTHALAGOOOOO immigration," for all the good it does me.

I don't see why many well-meaning people, including members of your administration and congress, can't see that people who share my views are concerned with the well-being of the citizens of the country, the draining of services to the citizens of this country, the maintenance of the culture of the USA by citizens of this country.

It's not that we don't care about illegal immigrants and workers. It's that we care about the legal immigrants, and their legacy in the USA.

Thanking You for Your Time, and Awaiting Your Response,

I Remain —

:WM


* YES. THAT WAS A JOKE.
** This is a euphemism, to avoid sounding anti-something-else.