Undocumented but still illegal

Dear Editor:I'm writing in response to Melissa Nunez's front page article regarding Claudia Retamoza's immigration status here in the U.S., or should I say Miss Nunez's use of Miss Retamoza's situation to further her agenda to get millions of illegal immigrants U.S. citizenship without going through the legal process by getting the DREAM Act passed ("Undocumented and unafraid," 1/17/13). The United States of America is a country of laws. Our constitution is not just a series of nice ideas that we aspire to but a carefully laid out set of laws by which we are governed. Break the law and you pay the consequence. From the very beginning of our country it has been assumed and put in writing that a well-regulated immigration process was a necessary part of our federal laws so that as a nation we could control the influx of immigrants. We decided when more or less immigrants were needed to enhance our economy. Never in our history have we allowed the illegal actions of immigrants to dictate our immigration policies. But now we have millions of illegal immigrants brought here by their illegal immigrant parents and because of inactivity by authorities and good lying abilities, they have been allowed to stay, even though it was not the will of the people based on our policies that were in place. These children have been secretly educated via our school system and now they say they have rights to be educated in our system as far as they can go. They also want to become citizens of the United States with all the rights and privileges of a citizen just because they have evaded deportation for so many years. Let's say that my parents had robbed a bank when I was 18 months old, evaded the authorities so that they were never apprehended or charged with the crime and they had invested the stolen money so the interested gained was now worth millions. Do you think I am entitled to the interest amount of that stolen money? After all, I have a dream to use that money to further my business or my education or whatever. You see, according to Miss Nunez, as long as you have a dream, it's OK to break the law and not suffer the consequences. If you ask me what I think should be done at this point it's this: Miss Retamoza should be deported back to Mexico where she can use her high school education to improve the economy of her community and eventually of her country. Then, she and others like her, could make Mexico, or whatever country they came from, a country of dreams. A country as appealing to immigrate to as the U.S. Steven Mansell Downey

********** Published: January 24, 2013 - Volume 11 - Issue 41