Police the Border, Flood the TIMES

In his Sunday, July 16 Current article "Police the border, flood the courts," LA Criminal Bar Assn. past president Charles L. Lindner does everything but take his readers through the correct chain of thought.

In this article, quite basically, Lindner hypothesizes that illegal immigrant legislation and attempted border control would flood the courts and cause much debt.

This could not be farther from the truth. And it couldn't be closer to a lie.

Lindner first begins to fall way short by supposing that all immirants discovered to be illegal must go through the criminal justice system.

Not so. Usually, they'd get deported.

Lindner almost saves himself with the quote "the goverment prosecuted one criminal case for every 100 immigrants apprehended."

What he really means is, for every 100 illegal immigrants, at least one is discovered to have a felony charge against it for a crime other than being an illegal alien. Usually it involves Social Security theft or child endangerment. The other 99 are deported.

But Lindner makes his second mistake when he assumes that increase security 'round the border would increase the percentage of apprehended illegal aliens who are sent through the criminal justice system.

It is not even a matter of percentages. It is a matter of absolutes.

With tightened border security (and punishment for the hiring of illegal alien workers), the total number of illegal aliens would drop.

That means the 1 in 100 would stay the same (if not decrease) but that there would be far fewer illegal aliens with whom to contend.

Personally, I would prefer that Lindney not flood the Times with his nonsense.