Dear HCN,
Although I was
pleased to see an HCN column touching upon
immigration issues (HCN, 12/23/02: Holding open the door to the
good life up north), Michelle Nijhuis painted a very one-sided
picture of U.S. immigration policy.
She submits that
allowing illegal immigrants to use the matricula card as a form of
legal identification would be a “surprisingly effective solution to
the international deadlock” over immigration policy.
This
is nonsense. Allowing the matricula card to be used as legal
identification condones the breaking of federal law. This would not
only mock U.S. laws, it would insult all potential immigrants who
patiently await to try to enter the U.S. through legal channels.
Rather than opening our borders to all comers in an
effort to assuage feelings of guilt, one might ask if it is morally
just to allow generations of Americans to inherit a nation with the
industrialized world’s largest population and highest
population growth rate.
What will the West and our nation
look like with an additional 150 million people? Do we wish to
bestow this type of legacy upon our children and grandchildren? I
look to the writers of HCN to raise and promote
these types of discussions, rather than suggest it is morally
corrupt to curb immigration quotas.
Jeffrey
Jacobs
Alexandria, Virginia
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Mining, skiing leave labor in the dust.
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