Ms. Bolton, hopefully you didn’t realize how much you trivialized the plight of immigrants. If legally entering the country were a viable option, most illegal immigrants would be entering that way.

The 50,000 permanent residence visas given out in a lottery system are a pittance. Yet still the United States manages to salt the wound by giving preference to countries which have the least people wanting to come here.

In a lot of cases those would be the richer countries in the world. So, we only allow those people in that don’t really need our help.

Your column also complains about the cost to taxpayers. Illegal immigrants are taxpayers too, except since they are illegal immigrants they can’t claim a refund every April like citizens can.

In effect they pay higher tax rates than legal workers at the same income level.

Also, they cannot partake in a lot of the benefits we receive from taxes.

In fact, California has attempted to remove the rights of their children to go to school even though many of these children are legal citizens of the United States. They can’t even report to the justice system any abuses they receive because to do so would be to court deportation.

The poverty many of these workers come from makes them feel their suffering is well worth it for themselves and their families back home.The summation of all this is that we have created another slave labor class. We receive huge boons from cheap labor force and deny this labor force rights we give citizens. Maybe taking these points in mind you might change your hugely oversimplified statements in your article on immigration.

Will Christopher

Senior

Biophysics