Letters to the editor

CASA and tax dollars

So, CASA of Maryland reflexively opposes a proposal that government contractors confirm the legal status of their employees (“Reinforcing the law,” Editorial, Monday). This is hardly news. Last year, CASA opposed a common-sense proposal by Delegate Luis Simmons, Montgomery County Democrat, that Maryland law conform to Virginia and D.C. law by allowing imposition of a jail term for driving without a license. Astonishingly, the same Gustavo Torres mentioned in the editorial said people had to drive children to school and get to work no matter whether they had a license or not. This year, Mr. Torres criticized Montgomery County police for assisting federal officials in the El Pollo Rico raids.

Why do the taxpayers have to support these constant attacks from CASA? As constituents, we wrote to Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, some time ago raising this point after he touted a $200,000 federal grant to CASA for anti-gang work in Maryland. We have yet to receive a response from the congressman.

LIZ AND GEORGE VARY

Bethesda

Illegals and crime

Donald J. Boudreaux of George Mason University either carelessly or purposefully misrepresents Michelle Malkin’s message in her Saturday Commentary column, “Sanctuary nation or sovereign nation?” which is not that “immigrants are especially likely to commit crimes” (“The truth about ‘immigrants,’” Letters, Monday). The incarceration rate of legal immigrants is irrelevant to the point.

It is the classic liberal tactic of accusing those who believe in the rule of law of xenophobia. The issue is illegal aliens, not legal immigrants. If our government had been doing its job, illegals who have committed vicious crimes would not have been here. Victims would be alive. Families would not be grieving. It is denial of the facts, not ignorance, that is the problem.

ANNE ALLEN

Washington

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Donald J. Boudreaux accuses Michelle Malkin of “stoking up xenophobia” in his Monday letter, “The truth about ‘immigrants.’” He further notes that in their demographic groups, immigrants are one-tenth as likely to commit crimes as are native-born Americans in those groups. His statistics appear to group all immigrants, legal and illegal, into one statistical group.

According to a Government Accountability Office report issued in April 2005, illegal aliens make up 27 percent of the prison population while representing just 4 percent (12 million) of the population. Twenty-five U.S. citizens are killed every day by illegals, for a total of 9,000 per year half killed by murder, the other half by vehicular accidents. How many of the drivers in those accidents had no license or insurance? I wonder.

Mr. Boudreaux then states, “Ignorance of the facts is, well, criminal.” The deaths of 9,000 of my fellow Americans at the hands (or wheels) of illegal immigrants is, well, criminal.

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