Sioux City Journal

Overlooking the illegality

Posted: Tuesday, June 05, 2007

SIOUX CITY -- This is in response to a May 28 Letter to the Editor headlined "What's the Complaint?" What the writer fails to mention is that the {M3major issue is that they have broken the law.

Here are some of the facts speaking from personal experience.

One of the issues is the economic impact that illegal immigrants are having on the United States in the health system. By law we have to give free medical care to anyone who needs it. We are seeing an increase in diseases that are brought in that were rare in the United States before.

As far as the education, teaching in Spanish has added millions of dollars to the educational system. For those who don't know, it does not take 10 years to learn the language as they want you to believe. I was immersed in English and I learned it in under two years. I spoke Spanish at home but English in school. I did not give up my heritage or culture but outside my home I was an American who happened to be a Puerto Rican.

As far as the jobs that nobody wants, that is the rhetoric put forth by the liberal media. Americans will do the jobs, you just have to pay them at least the minimum wage.

As far as paying taxes, we all do. This is to pay for necessary services that everyone receives. If you break the law, you are not entitled to receive tax refunds.

People come to the U.S. to better themselves, which is understandable, but please stop talking like it is owed to you because you are doing the jobs supposedly nobody wants and paying taxes while conveniently forgetting you would not be in this situation if you would not have broken the law in the first place. -- Sonia Burgos

Story Comments

TM wrote on Jun 14, 2007 10:10 AM:

" DR, my point about the driver's license was that you can drive in a country without knowing the language. Try renting a car in Europe. I believe driving isn't lefty's problem. I think his problem is more with non-english-speaking individuals getting a form of identification. "

DR wrote on Jun 13, 2007 4:06 PM:

" TM... Wake up and spell the tacos! You could NEVER enter Canada or Mexico or any other country in the world and obtain a drivers license in the way Mexicans do here! If they can�t read English... how can they study the manual that our sons & daughters are required by law to know before they walking into the DMV to get their license for the first time! Something is very screwed up with this picture! And if you can't see it, then take your blinders off! "

TM wrote on Jun 13, 2007 10:38 AM:

" JW, you're full of it. I was in Cancun 10 years ago and didn't need to know a word of Spanish to get by. And to lefty, are you saying you shouldn't be able to drive a car in another country? Or you just don't want "them" to have a form of identification? "

lefty wrote on Jun 13, 2007 9:27 AM:

" To me: Thank you for your comment! "

me wrote on Jun 13, 2007 1:09 AM:

" Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907: "In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag.... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." "