Letter: Immigration raids good for taxpayers

Thursday, Oct. 4, 2007 | 7:29 a.m.

Regarding Timothy Pratt's Oct. 1 article, "Immigration bill's failure brings raid in Reno, fear in Las Vegas," about the raid on illegals working at McDonald's restaurants in Reno:

The fact is that raids, arrests and deportation of illegals will improve conditions for Americans who pay taxes.

Arresting and deporting illegals actually benefit U.S. citizens. Americans will do the jobs taken by illegals if employers would hire them instead . Think - tank researchers, such as Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, provide evidence that after raids , as in Greeley, Colo., at the Swift & Co. meat processing plant, American job applicants flooded the company's human resources department.

This phenomenon is replicated all over the country where raids of illegals take place. When Americans are hired, they will pay the taxes that support all of us.

The economic burden on American taxpayers for allowing illegals to be here is enormous. Education, incarceration and emergency room health care for illegals are big-ticket price tags paid by Americans. As to the effect of raids and deportation of illegals who have U.S.-born children, those children will have dual citizenship in the U.S. and Mexico. They can go with their parents back to Mexico without breaking up the family.

In the long and short run, raids, arrests and deportations of illegals in the Las Vegas area would improve conditions for American taxpayers.

Paula Stone, Henderson