America can’t afford to have an open-border policy

Ed Westman, North Las Vegas

Sunday, May 2, 2010 | 2:03 a.m.

Regarding Tuesday’s Las Vegas Sun editorial, “A bad idea on immigration,” about Arizona’s new immigration law:

I do agree with one of the last comments in the editorial, that the government should provide a more orderly way for people to come to the United States.

Both parties have failed to take measures to secure our border. All countries other than ours have strict control over who enters, how long, why, etc.

If the entire world was friendly, we wouldn’t need border control, except for population explosion and concern about people walking into our country with a disease. If everyone came to America, we would soon be like India, with over a billion people, and not enough food or water to take care of everybody. Therefore, in this respect, we need to monitor the volume of people coming in.

Since the world is not friendly, we can’t afford to just let people come here without knowing whether they have a record of being terrorists or a long history of violence.

I have no problem with Mexicans coming to our country. They are hard-working individuals and are looking for a better life. However, they have to come here in a legal manner.

Meanwhile, our society has changed a lot since World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The hatred for America is out there and many countries are now obtaining nuclear weapons. I wonder at times if our society even thinks of this. I hope we never have a weak defense system or downgrade our defense because of budget problems.