Letters to the editor

Mexican standoff

An unwelcome fence across America goes both ways

Editor, The Times:

So our current paranoid administration is building up a border fence on land that was stolen to begin with ["Looks like fences will go up on the U.S.-Mexico border," Times page one, May 18]. Meanwhile, our elderly and baby-boomer citizens are flocking to Mexico to purchase medications, dental and medical care, or to simply retire because they can't afford to live here any longer. Fair trade, I say.

Now, along with gasoline, your food prices will rise even higher because there's no one left to pick the fruit. What happens when we get everyone mad at us instead of building good neighbor relations? Maybe Mexico will kick out all those retirees and then our children will have to support them instead and we'll have a majority of our population at poverty level with no medical care.

Let's be careful how we look at this. I happen to know there are many Americans living there who never bother to learn the language or mix with the locals while they continue to ruin the environment. What a shame. Mexican citizens are a beautiful, friendly people who were first screwed over by the Spaniards and now us.

We don't need a fence, we need to question why we are letting these things happen. Instead, let's see what's really going on with George Bush. Be afraid, be very afraid.

— Jana Schreurs, Snohomish

Deporting for duty

So now we are going to deploy the National Guard to secure our borders against the hordes of illegal aliens entering our country. Deploying our troops seems to be the easy answer to all of our woes. The Bush administration estimates that it will eventually cost about $1 billion to stop the influx of illegal workers entering the country.

As a former Army recruiter, I sense that we have Americans who, for a decent wage, would be willing to perform the same jobs that these aliens [perform]. Every month, the Army turns down thousands of applicants deemed unsuitable for military service. Why not create a program offering these and other individuals incentives, such as money for college, tax-free income up to $20,000 per year, health insurance, etc., to perform the jobs now held by illegal aliens.

We could create a national registry of such workers and offer it to employers seeking workers. The government would ensure that these workers were either citizens or legal residents. Employers who continued to hire illegals would face heavy penalties or prison time.

Once there are no jobs for illegals, they will have no incentive to enter our country. I'm sure that this could be accomplished for less than $1 billion.

— Ed Castellani, Marysville

Mission of our salvation

Let's do da math, Dubya:

Corporate America likes cheap labor that can't organize or vote. The federal government considers the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour a fair shake for low-end workers. Mexico's average hourly wage in Mexico City is around $10 a day (mas o menos). The majority of Mexicans work in the underground economy because their government has failed to create a sustained job-creation program over the past 68 years of PRI (Republican) rule. Mexico has more billionaires than any other country in the world (even the good ol' U.S. of A.). Go figure!

Option A: Increase the minimum wage so that the 25 percent of high-school students who drop out of school have a decent wage to do the jobs supposedly no one wants to do.

Option B: Help Mexico create jobs for the millions of poor underemployed people on their side of the border (whatever it takes). Has to be cheaper than paying 6,000 National Guardsmen, 15,000 Border Patrol officers, free airplane rides back to Mexico and housing for the incarcerated — don't ya think?

Option C: Mine the border.

Option D: Annex Mexico and we'll have all the oil we need and cheap labor.

— Daniel Clarke, Seattle

Turning back nothing but time

I see a vast majority of our United States senators have failed their history lessons. They have noted from where trouble comes, and determined the best way to avoid it is a physical barrier.

This would be fine, except they are committing our country to repeating the mistake of France in the 1930s when it built the Maginot Line along its border with Germany. Sure, we don't have to build a fence across the entire border; there's a lot of desert out there, and who would go around the fence through the desert? Just like the French figured German troops wouldn't go through the Ardennes, Luxembourg or Belgium.

Oops. I'm sure our fence will be every bit as successful.

— Tom Pearce, Lynnwood

English only spoken here

Regarding "Mixed signals on English as national language" [News, May 19]:

Mamma mia, those immigrants have a lot of chutzpah, begora, jiving in public in an uncool lingo. We should make it verboten to sing the national anthem in anything but English. Undocumented workers should dig, la vie en rose is caput.

It's not a slam-dunk to learn English but they should go for broke trying. If they learn English, we'll exclaim, "Mazal tov, Bwana!" If they can't capice English, they should vamoose, chop chop. When they go, we will say: "Mashalla!" and "Sayonara, Tovarich."

— Jack Israel, Bellevue

Cure for confusion

Don't swallow the spin

I support The Times' call for an extension of the penalty deadline for seniors to sign up for Medicare Part D ["Waive penalties on Medicare Rx," editorial, May 18]. But, the assertions in your editorial that the program is too confusing for seniors to navigate is condescending, if not demeaning.

How confusing is it for seniors to buy a car with so many brands and models available? The car market doesn't seem to impede purchases by seniors, and the Medicare drug-insurance market isn't any more complicated.

The real reason behind the failure of some seniors to embrace Part D was the bad-mouthing of the program by Democrats, labor unions and their media supporters.

— Bob Condon, Clyde Hill

Country store

It breaks us, we buy it

As I was listening to the ka-ching of the gas meter while filling my car, I could swear I heard the sound, "Nationalize energy resources! Nationalize energy resources!" Has it ever sounded that way to you?

— Greg Logan, Shoreline