Americans-in-waiting or criminals?

Letter date: 
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Letter publisher: 
registerguard.com
Letter author: 
Pete Hartman
Letter body: 

The Feb. 5 guest viewpoint by Marcela Mendoza and Juan Carlos Valle introduced me to a new phrase (“At long last, immigration policy is under repair”).

The authors described the 11 million illegal immigrants in our country as “Americans-in-waiting.” Why did they use such a misleading term? The most accurate phrase to describe those immigrants is “unconvicted criminals.”

They broke our immigration laws to sneak into this country, and that’s a crime.

PETE HARTMAN

North Bend