Immigration now, immigration tomorrow, immigration forever.

• Author: Simeone, Bob
• Position: Letters - Letter to the editor

Reason's pieces on immigration ("Immigration Now, Immigration Tomorrow, Immigration Forever," August/September) delivered a cogent and complete set of arguments on the issue but were most important for their central question: What threat does illegal immigration pose? I have been fully in the outraged Tancredo-Dobbs camp about this, and the fundamental nature of your question gave me pause. Now let me return the favor.

Do we owe the rest of the planet a living? Illegals come here because there is an opportunity for prosperity that comes from laws that are taken seriously and enforced fairly. They are far less likely to be shaken down by police, or extorted from, or cheated here than they are at home. If property laws are worth enforcing here, then why are those related to sovereignty treated with such contempt?

reason is never so vexed as when property rights are under attack. Where is your outrage over the rights of those whose properties are damaged and liberty threatened as the flood of illegals washes over them daily?

Is there value in a sense of national allegiance, of shared purpose? And if so, is it worth defending, or do we let it degenerate into a quaint anachronism that couldn't survive our 21st-century sophistication, like setting out a flag on the Fourth? Most illegals do want to speak English and do want to assimilate, as have most immigrants historically. But historically we couldn't have conceived of groups like La Raza fueling a sense of entitlement that, having already corroded purpose and self-reliance among the native-born, is now seen as an inalienable right even for those who broke the law to get here.

The ideas that illegals come to the U.S. mainly to work, that our prosperity will likely increase with them here, that our culture will be richer as a result, are all worthless if the America that results is a balkanized collection of self-interests vying for status as most aggrieved. I'd like to believe all your stats about the inexorable progress of assimilation, but this is the age of asymmetrical warfare, and with narrowcasting, quotas, and enforced bilingualism, I don't buy that those who have forced their way in today are as committed to this country as were earlier generations.

Bob Simeone

Pittsburgh, PA

I don't spend my workday sitting comfortably in an air-conditioned office, instead being self-employed in janitorial and other service industry labors. You know--the work Americans won't do. With the uncontrolled...