This letter is in response to the editorial board’s column on illegal immigration in the Daily on Oct. 22. You seemed to be in defense of illegal immigration, stating things such as their goals are the same as our ancestors and the economies in their home countries are crap. Well, while these statements are true, they hardly come close to convincing me that I should support illegal immigration.

First and foremost, it’s called illegal immigration for a reason: IT IS ILLEGAL.

Maybe you guys on the editorial board should get a dictionary and look up the definition of that word. These people are coming into our country and staying without visas, passports, green cards or whatever else someone needs to live here. That is against the law. Laws exist for our own good and protection, and you say that nothing is wrong with breaking them?

Second, yes, their goals are the same as our ancestors. Where our ancestors differ from illegal immigrants is that they did it LEGITIMATELY. There is nothing wrong with entering this country legally and getting a good job to better your life. However, as we all know, illegal immigrants do not enter the country legally (here’s where that illegal thing comes into play again).

Third, yes, the economy in Mexico stinks — you are correct. Unemployment is high, wages are low, and population, pollution and crime are at dangerously high levels.

Well, I’ve got news for you: There are plenty of places here in America where that is a problem too, and plenty of people here in America who would like to have the jobs that they are deprived of because some illegal immigrant will work for less pay.

Does this sound right to you?

Do you find anything wrong with a country that prioritizes the wants and needs of criminals before its own citizens?

Well, this is exactly what you people on the editorial board is proposing with your defense.

I could literally go on for hours writing about the wrongs of illegal immigration, but I will sum it up with this: Illegal immigration severely disrupts the market for labor in the country; it is a major source of crime, and it is by many Americans’ standards unethical.

I agree that what happened in Denison last week was a terrible tragedy, but the positive intentions of those immigrants does not justify their illegal actions.

This is true for all illegal immigrants. The laws regulating immigration were created to protect us, and I think that the editorial board should have a little more respect for them.

Casey Muhm

Sophomore

Political Science