Battle lines at the border

Re “Next step for immigration,” Opinion, March 28

I’m afraid Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Op-Ed article is just more rhetoric and not reality -- the opposite of what he claims. He accuses Congress of focusing on politics instead of principles, yet that’s exactly what he’s done.

Like many lawmakers on this subject, the legal status of immigrants is blurred in his article, and all, legal or illegal, are referred to as “immigrants” only. Our governor uses this common error to play both sides of the fence.

Schwarzenegger thinks illegal-immigrant criminals should be deported, but not an illegal immigrant only. Apparently he thinks some are welcome to break the law and not others. When he says that our economy depends on a “free flow of people,” clearly he is an open-border advocate.

No one suggests that legal immigrants, as the governor once was, shouldn’t be respected, embraced and encouraged to assimilate into our culture. If “immigration is about our values,” as he loftily states, how about the value of respecting our laws and national sovereignty?

PENNY PEYSER

Woodland Hills

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Gustavo Arellano has well described the intention of Mexican immigrants, legal or illegal, to assimilate into life in the U.S. (Opinion, March 28). Anyone who still doubts the allegiance of Latino immigrants should read the list of military deaths in Iraq. As of March 28, there are 243 Californians listed, more than 80 of whom have names like, well, Gustavo Arellano. They are clearly the sons and daughters of immigrants from Latin America; perhaps some were immigrants themselves.

WILLIAM LOEHR

Ojai