Guest Comment: Misplaced compassion regarding illegals

Mr. Ed Hunt’s letter dated March 12 entitled “Gloom and Doom” begins by saying that he found Mr. Severe’s letter datedMarch 2 both “interesting and distressing” regarding illegal aliens entering our country. Not so strangely I found Mr. Hunt’s letter wildly bizarre.

Unbelievably, he asked Mr. Severe how he had obtained information for his commentary such as the number of illegal aliens who entered our country daily and what medical organization supplied him with names of diseases attributed to illegal aliens.

Isn’t it bizarre that Mr. Hunt, who seemingly advocates open borders and aiding and abetting their entry illegally into our country, is now asking about the ramifications of those actions. One would think that before he adopted his opinions he would have first looked into those details himself.

Unless one is living in a cave, the information sought could not be missed. It’s on the daily news broadcasts, written media and Web sites. Headlines in our local Green Valley News could not have easily been missed, but obviously Mr. Hunt did so. Here they are again to refresh his memory:

“Illegals use local rest areas for pickup,” “Living in border counties is expensive, study shows,” “High-speed chase results in arrest of 8 illegals,” “BP warns residents to be wary of illegals,” “Tackling violent crime, special unit tries to plug drug corridors.” Mr. Hunt obviously needs assistance and I’ll be happy to elucidate.

The U.S. Border Patrol, both in the media and in a presentation several weeks ago in Green Valley at the 260 Club, offered the following: Approximately 1200 IAs cross into the Tucson Sector per day. In 2007, 14,111 of those apprehended were convicted criminals. The IAs constituted 74.5 percent men, 18 percent women, 5 percent children and 2.5 percent were “Other than Mexican.”

The Arizona Star printed an article stating that 11 percent of the workforce in Arizona is IAs and the cost to American taxpayers is conservatively estimated at $183 billion per year.

The Center for Immigration Studies from March 2007 stated that one in eight U.S. residents are immigrants and more than a third are illegal. Since 2000, 10.3 million immigrants arrived and nearly 52 percent were illegal. Of adults, 31 percent had no high school diploma, 33 percent use at least one welfare program and Mexicans lead the list with 51 percent.

Immigrants and their U.S-born children account for 71 percent of the uninsured since 1989. Immigration in total accounts for virtually all of the national increase in public school enrollment over the past 20 years.

The Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control published a report, easily obtained, regarding the diseases attributed to IAs. Some of that report is as follows:

Tuberculosis: It had disappeared from the U.S. but has now returned in a more lethal strain killing 60 percent of those infected. One year’s treatment costs more than $250,000.

Chagas Disease: Has no known cure and kills over 50,000 annually of the estimated 18 million infected. It takes nearly 20 years to manifest itself and then those infected have less than two years to live.

Leprosy: A scourge in biblical days was so rare in the U.S. that in 40 years only 900 people had been infected. In the past three years more than 7,000 new cases have been diagnosed.

Polio: Once considered eradicated in our country is now back and in growing numbers.

Cysticercosis: Caused by a rare brain worm that can be fatal and is spread primarily by unsanitary food handling practices. It was traced to IA’s coming to our country.

Hepatitis A, B, and C: This disease is spreading rapidly and in 2003 just a few IAs working as kitchen laborers endangered 3,000.

What disgusts all sensible Americans is the complete lack of compassion people like Mr. Hunt show for the rest of us. Can you imagine the amount of taxes we pay or the suffering and death we suffer just because the likes of Mr. Hunt want to feel good by aiding and abetting illegal aliens? How does their “I’m a humanitarian” rhetoric appeal to the mothers of the four children killed in Minnesota by an illegal alien woman? I’d like to have Mr. Hunt address the families and widows of the five out of seven police officers killed last year in Phoenix by illegal aliens. Would he like to discuss his humanitarian principles to the people caught in the mayhem in Los Angeles by the MS-13 gang that makes the “Bloods and Crips” look like Boy Scouts.

Mr. Hunt, if you want to feel like you’re worth something, why don’t you head to the Gulf Coast and help build houses for your own countrymen instead of putting America at risk?

Unfortunately, “Blind men cannot see and ignorant men will not see”

Gary Meinert and his wife Karlyn spend six months in Green Valley and six months

at their lake home in far northern Wisconsin.

The views expressed are the writer’s and not necessarily this newspaper’s.