Immigration Issues: Past and Present

In recent weeks, I've heard a lot of talk about the issue of illegal immigration. I read that the number of illegal aliens in this country, mainly of Hispanic origin, is 12 million and steadily increasing.

This is a troubling statistic. While I don't blame the illegals personally for wanting to come here and make a better life for themselves, I do blame the companies that bring them here as cheap labor into a job market already overburdened with unemployed and underemployed American citizens. The idea of our southern border being about as secure as Stalag 13's barbed wire fences is another alarming thought, considering our recent and ongoing problems with terrorism.

Recalling my history classes, I remember that in the late 1930s and early 1940s, thousands of Jews fled Germany looking for refuge safe from the reach of the Nazis. Like most countries at the time, the United States refused almost all of them entry, doggedly sticking to the immigration quotas that existed at that time. Never mind that our government no doubt knew of the extermination camps through aerial reconnaissance and other sources.

Rules were rules, and as a result, many people who could have been saved, were rounded up by the Nazis and exterminated. Why the US and the UK could not offer these people, fleeing for their lives, at least temporary refuge until the war was over, I cannot fathom.

But today's illegal aliens are not running for their very lives. They may be fleeing hopeless economic conditions, but that's not enough of a reason to allow them to bypass the accepted legal procedures to legally immigrate to the US. They need to file their forms, wait their turn and do it the right way

Thoughts?