Immigration law is there for a reason

Arnold Ponce’s letter in the Feb. 10 edition of the Woodburn Independent (“Gilliam offers hope with immigration reform”) represents a pinhole view of the world. It ignores the sovereignty of nations, the rule of law and the rights of U.S. citizens. It assumes that this country should have no restrictions on immigration, that every person in the world who wishes to immigrate here should be able to do so, regardless of the effects on the country as a whole. It confuses legal and illegal immigration, equating the two, but these categories are as different as night and day.

As Sen. Ted Cruz explained to a young woman recently at one of his campaign stops, “[There are] human tragedies when people break the law. … There’s no reason that America’s laws should have less respect than the laws of every other country on Earth. We should welcome people who come following the laws, but there are consequences for breaking the laws. And that’s part of what makes America the nation that we are.”

There are between seven billion and eight billion people on earth. Over four billion live in abject poverty. We cannot accept all of the world’s disadvantaged without harming our environment, our social structure and the freedoms we take for granted.