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Letters | WHAT TO DO ABOUT ILLEGAL-IMMIGRATION MESS

LAST WEEK, we asked your opinion of the big immigration bill making its way throught the Senate. Your responses: The new immigration law reflects the futility of the Dutch boy using his finger to patch a dike already obliterated by years of neglect.

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AST WEEK, we asked your opinion of the big immigration bill making its way throught the Senate. Your responses:

The new immigration law reflects the futility of the Dutch boy using his finger to patch a dike already obliterated by years of neglect.

No regulations can correct what is now hopelessly broken. The incredible influx of cheap labor is an obvious wink and a nod by the Bush administration to his strongest benefactors, the business community.

Now we're stuck with billions of taxpayer dollars being spent on millions of migrants and their citizen offspring while the corporate world laughs all the way to the bank. Short of annexing Mexico, which refuses to provide for its own, get ready for a bilingual country.

Mexico has finally accomplished what it couldn't do at the Alamo. It has quietly invaded and conquered the U.S. This new bill is the terms of our surrender!

Anthony J. Frascino, Cherry Hill

The U.S. prides itself on welcoming newcomers and protecting families, but current immigration policies are forcing our most vulnerable populations to wait for years before they can reunite with loved ones.

The legislation before the Senate is a good first step toward reforming the broken system, but improvements are needed to make it more fair and humane.

Local 32BJ's 5,000 members in Philadelphia - many of whom are immigrants - want a smart and practical system for future workers, a path to citizenship for current immigrant workers, security enhancement, civil and workplace rights for all, and an emphasis on family reunification.

Wayne MacManiman, Mid-Atlantic Chairman

Service Employees International, Local 32BJ

The so-called reform bill does nothing to the millions already here taking jobs from citizens. This cheap labor is costing taxpayers through the nose.

In areas where they've settled, crime has gone up.

They're being given medical care when Americans can't get it along with welfare. They'll be allowed to get an education like legal state residents, get tax credits for being at the poverty level and, on top of that, many don't even speak English on top of all that.

The government has sold its own citizenship to corporate greed.

Thomas G. Lutek, Philadelphia

The casual observer knows that the cause and cure of this problem is at the employer level. If we truly want to stem the tide of illegal workers, have the federal government stop issuing taxpayer identification numbers to every illegal immigrant that asks for one.

Ted Lahm

Philadelphia

As the Senate debates improvements to this bill, many are asking why we can't get control over our borders first, before making any other changes to the law?

But we can't depend on enforcement alone. We've tripled the number of border patrol agents, quintupled the enforcement budget and escalated workplace raids and deportations.

The result? People still cross the desert, but in the most remote and dangerous areas. Once here, they are afraid to call the police, take their children for shots or return home because the risks of going back and forth are too great. The undocumented immigrant population has swollen to more than 12 million people. We simply cannot deport our way out of the current immigration mess, nor should we want to.

Obviously we need a new approach.

Only by first making our laws enforceable through legal immigration reforms can we expect to effectively enforce them.

By moving immigrants through legal channels, providing those already here with a path to citizenship and reducing the backlog in family visas, immigration will become manageable, and our efforts at the border and at the workplace more effective.

Meredith Rapkin, Philadelphia