I was both surprised and irritated in response to Yeh Ling-Ling’s Oct. 18 letter, “Immigrate Destiny?” Clearly, the article about the immigration rally on Oct. 17 was misunderstood.

The real issue is giving rights to immigrants who deserve them. Already this year more than 400 people have died crossing over the U.S.-Mexican border. Should people be allowed to break the law? No, but they don’t deserve to die, either.

By changing the immigration policies currently in place, we could not only secure our borders more efficiently but save lives as well. By instituting policies that more accurately reflect the actual number of workers already in this country and then, by allowing these workers to legally gain citizenship, illegal trafficking and the problems associated with it would be greatly diminished.

The insinuation by Yeh’s letter that Latino immigrants are trying to extend the Mexican nation is both presumptuous and unfair. There are minorities in any group that do malicious things and to suggest that two examples are indicative of an entire group is simply irresponsible.

Instead of pointing fingers at certain immigrant groups, there should be an understanding of the hardships faced by all those involved.

The idea that people wanting to reform a broken system means that Mexico was trying to spread its reach is simply absurd. Mexicans aren’t invading this country, they are simply going to where the jobs are.

The most important aspect of immigration reform is the need for the American public to be educated about the problems in the alternative. As brilliantly illustrated in Yeh’s letter, people have not bothered to understand the real issues involved with illegal immigration.

Silvia Garcia

junior in LAS