Editor:
My comments are in response to the Feb. 3, 2004, letter, "Lawmakers should pass sensible controls on immigration." Joseph K. Lawson recited unfounded statistics as fact. These statistics were extremely biased propaganda, and they are purely speculation written by anti-immigration organizations.
Upon searching through Medicare and Medicaid statistics, nowhere do they make distinctions between citizens and illegals in their reports. Nor does the Department of Labor report these characteristics in their job displacement statistics. Not to mention that they attribute the unemployment rates and wage depression to the recession that started in 2001. Anti-immigration organizations want you to believe that immigration is the only cause, when there are plenty of other factors to consider.
Here is a fact. The United States is about to witness a mass migration of Haitians because of the turmoil that is affecting their country. These people are coming because they fear for their lives, whether they land in Cuba, the Bahamas, or the U.S. they are better off. Their only chance at a better life is to reach foreign soil in the hopes of being granted asylum, or going unnoticed. This is a land of opportunity where in one hour they can make more than a day's wages in Haiti.
Passing tougher immigration laws doesn't solve the problem because it doesn't address the root of the problem. When our lives are in jeopardy we all look for safety.
As for another reader's concerns of this nation becoming a Third World country, I'll believe it when our athletes and celebrities are making minimum wage.
Jason Francis
West Point, UT
thirteens@att.net