December 12, 2008

Letters to the Editor

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No letters were printed this week; here is last week's letter:

When it comes to immigration, ‘right is right because it is’

Regarding Joseph Kelly’s article on immigrants in the “Faith Alive!” section of the Nov. 14 issue of The Criterion, what do the immigrants of the past—which included my grandparents—have to do with the illegals coming across the border today?

My grandparents came in legally (at the time through Ellis Island), became citizens and embraced the totality of the United States of America.

The article gave a true and proper view of immigrants during our history.

The difference between my grandparents, and other immigrants of that time, and today’s Hispanics coming in is that the former obeyed the laws of this country while those coming from Mexico do not, have no or little intention of becoming citizens and hope to take as much advantage of the largesse of this country as they possibly can.

It is sad that our hierarchy has fallen into this trap and lost sight of “right is right because it is,” and have decided to play the semantics game with a faithful who are already wondering what will happen in the future.

Breaking a duly constituted law is wrong. The good nuns taught me that many years ago. We need to return to what they taught.

We obviously need a Mexican hierarchy willing to take a stand to help their people in Mexico rather than condoning their breaking the laws of a neighboring country, the U.S. We need a U.S. hierarchy to work with them in this endeavor.

Do not compare those here illegally now with my grandparents and those of my friends, who obeyed the laws and worked hard to instill this respect for authority in their children and grandchildren.

- Barbara L. Maness, Vevay

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