Topic is legitimate, but not the comments

In the Sept. 24 issue, Steve Hyle replied to a letter advocating that Delaware become a sanctuary state. This is a legitimate topic for debate. The same can’t be said for Hyle’s comments about immigrants.

Here’s how Hyle compares the immigrants of yesterday and today: “They came to America to make themselves better and in so doing made America better. They didn’t come here to take. They came here to give and assimilate.

“Today they come, not with gratitude, but with arrogant demands and their hand out. They disrespect our laws and knowingly become criminals upon their first step across the border.”

It’s hard to know where to begin with such nonsense, but I’ll start with my own background. I know little of my ancestors, but since they were Irish I expect many came to escape the potato famine, which claimed a million lives in the late 1840s. I doubt my forebears came here to “give” anything to anybody. They came here to survive.

My father grew up in a rough-and-tumble mill town, where he would challenge newly arrived neighborhood boys to a fight. Earlier generations of my family came from the roughest section of that hardscrabble town. I don’t know how long they took to assimilate.

But despite this background, my family managed to launch a small business that employed around 200 at the time of its sale in 2008.

Our story echoes that of countless immigrant families, whose descendants overcame poor backgrounds and an openly hostile reception to live the American dream.

Hyle also notes that undocumented immigrants “knowlingly become criminals” by the simple act of stepping across the border. That’s true, of course, in a limited sense but it’s hardly the main concern of many Americans. They believe the lurid tales of rapists and drug dealers conjured up by President Trump.

Many studies have shown undocumented immigrants to have a crime rate lower than that of native-born Americans, but the Cato Institute, a think tank devoted to limited government, doubted their accuracy. They took a close look at Texas, a state that: borders Mexico; has a large immigrant population; is controlled by conservative Republicans; and, unlike most jurisdictions, keeps close track of the number of undocumented immigrants who are incarcerated.

Earlier this year, they announced their findings: The other studies were right! “The Texas research is consistent with the finding that crime along the

Mexican border is much lower than in the rest of the country,” the Cato Institute announced.

They also found that “El Paso’s border fence did not lower crime.” It’s amazing what you can find when you actually look stuff up. Hyle also makes a big point about how today’s “arrogant” immigrants don’t want to work; they want a handout. Mr. Hyle, let me introduce you to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the same agency that produces the statistics that Trump loves to tout.

According to the BLS, the labor participation rate for foreign-born Hispanics is 68.3 percent; for-native born whites, 62.2 percent. I could cite more statistics, but I’ll end on another personal note.

I have a part-time job where I help students, both native-born Americans and immigrant Hispanics, with their writing. The immigrants I’ve met are respectful men and women working hard to an education; they’ll play their own role in the American story.

How many immigrants do you know, Mr. Hyle?

Which brings me to a question for the editors: Would you print such stereotypical and derogatory comments about any other group in this country?

If not, why print this garbage?

Don Flood
Lewes