Herndon Day Labor Site: Response

Herndon Gets It Right - [Washington Post]:

"The proposed day-laborer center is not the problem; it is a response to a condition created by an unrealistic federal policy that offers visas to no more than 10,000 unskilled workers a year when the jobs available number many times that. Stepped-up enforcement isn't necessarily the answer: Immigration should not be under the purview of local police, and federal authorities have come to the reasonable conclusion that raiding parking lots where immigrants gather to seek gainful employment need not be a priority."

I received an unsigned, irate, handwritten, and somewhat verbally profane letter in response to my LTE. To be generous, the most interesting point the writer made was that day laborers work at menial jobs that Americans don't want to do precisely because there are day laborers cheaply available. But this system is inherently elitist and enslaving.
Unfortunately this apparent moral concern was sandwiched between profanity and anger at increases in property taxes "going to school illegals and build schools for them"[sic] and having "to pay for their health costs and keeping them in prisons." The writer concluded with the forecast that "one day soon we will be in the minority and fall like Rome did."
To be fair, the writer missed the actual point of my LTE and was speaking to the larger issue of immigration and his thoughts on the matter. And it seemed he simply wanted to make the point that I was either a "dumb ass" or "f-king ignorant."
There is much I could say, but the writer did not offer me the opportunity to respond in similar fashion. So I'll simply make two points. First, when I have something of value to say to someone, I provide my name. Second, my letter was worth publishing in the Washington Post and is amplified by the Washington Post Editorial cited above.

More on this Topic:

• Lisa Reins Online Transcript following the Wednesday Vote.