To the editor: For all the media coverage and speculation about the incoming Republican administration’s promise to deport unauthorized immigrants, California’s anticipated resistance is questionable on many levels. (“As mass deportations loom, ICE eyeing new detention facility in California,” Dec. 7)
Acting with high-profile defiance, state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta uses terminology like “California values” and “culture of fear and mistrust.” Gov. Gavin Newsom has asked the state Legislature to set aside $25 million in taxpayer money for possible legal battles against the incoming Trump administration, which will probably include fights over immigration. That’s on top of the billions that unauthorized immigration already costs us.
Are we supposed to trust our state leaders that any of this is worth the cost? Are they politicking for their future? There’s also the perennial question asked by law-abiding U.S. citizens: What about laws that make it a crime to enter the U.S. without permission?
Who among us would not live in “fear and mistrust” if we were subject to arrest and punishment over breaking federal law? How do “California values” include harboring lawbreakers?
Raymond Roth, Oceanside
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To the editor: If President-elect Donald Trump moves ahead with his plan to deport millions of immigrants, it is important to know if his claims about them are true or not. Here’s a small part of what the Immigration Initiative at Harvard found in 2022:
- Two-thirds of undocumented immigrants have been in the U.S. for more than 10 years. More than 6 million have U.S.-born children who are citizens.
- Forty-seven percent of immigrants arriving in the last five years are college-educated.
- Less-educated immigrants work where there are labor shortages in low-skilled jobs.
- Immigrants have much lower crime rates than native-born Americans.
- Undocumented immigrants pay federal, state and local taxes across the U.S.
- Immigration reduces the cost of child care, construction, food and house cleaning.
- Immigrants are more likely to start new firms. They own 25% of new firms and employ almost 8 million Americans.
Given all the benefits immigrants bring to the U.S., the question needs to be asked: What are the benefits of deporting them?
Richie Locasso, Hemet
