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Published on 08/04/1999 All articles from this issue

Letters to the editor

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Deportation is the answer

Two years ago, the El Camino Hospital board withdrew its funding for St. Joseph the Worker Center after the center had refused to comply with a state law that requires the screening of clients for legal residency. It was believed at the time that most of the center's clients had no right to work - or even be in the United States.

This was and remains doubly true for those day laborers who decline to use the center and instead solicit work from sidewalks near El Camino Real and San Antonio Road.

It is against federal law, a felony in fact, for anyone to knowingly aid a person remaining here illegally. It is also unfair to the millions of persons waiting honestly in line to come to the United States legally.

No doubt, the Los Altos ordinance that outlaws solicitation of work from sidewalks will just cause day laborers to move across El Camino to Mountain View, or a few blocks to Palo Alto. However, the answer is not to do nothing. The answer: deport persons who are here illegally.

Sharon WebsterPalo Alto

A different kind of suffering in Chile

In his "Clergy View" (Town Crier July 21), Rev. Mike Clark gratuitously lumps the democracy of Chile in with Ireland, Bosnia and Central America as one of the suffering countries around the world.

It may be that Rev. Clark refers to the situation that existed when General Pinochet ousted the Marxist-Socialist president Salvador Allende 30 years ago.

Chile has an effective democratic system of government that functions well and is beset by the same types of problems as other democracies the world over. At the moment, it is suffering in a way Rev. Clark did not mean: it has been severely impacted by the "Asian flu," as we have seen their exports drastically reduced by the disappearance of the Asian countries' buying power. Experts agree that the return to normalcy is only a matter of time. They have taken all the proper steps to mitigate the effects of the situation.

Leland G. Means Jr.

Los Altos