(CDT declined to publish)

To the editor:

On October 12th, the CDT's "Our View" bemoaned that Senator Santorum
and the mayors of Altoona and Hazelton had made immigration an
election year issue. A week later the CDT ran a front page story on
the growth of remittances from Pennsylvania to Latin America and the
$460 billion dollar contribution to the US economy made by legal and
illegal Latino immigrants. The article was a lopsided fluff piece-
little more than a rehash of an Inter-American Development Bank press
release. Now that the election has passed, will the CDT run additional
articles on immigration and border security? How much do
Pennsylvanians spend to incarcerate illegal immigrant convicted
felons? How much do we spend to provide social services and education
to illegal immigrants? How much do illegal immigrants depress wages of
lower-income Pennsylvanians? How many Pennsylvania employers have been
cited for employing illegal immigrants? What challenges do employers
face in verifying that workers are here legally? How many illegal
immigrants are stopped on Pennsylvania's highways by our police and
state troopers and then released because the Immigration and
Naturalization Service does not have sufficient resources to deport
them? How much contraband enters over our porous borders and what is
the cost to our society? What are the risks that terrorists will
exploit those holes? What are the challenges faced by legal immigrants
and guests to obtain green cards and start the path towards
citizenship? What message would we send to the millions of people
worldwide who stand in line every day at our embassies and consulates
hoping to come here legally should we offer amnesty to the illegal
immigrants who have cut in line?

John Groenveld
State College