To the editor:

Watching police officers and soldiers go into Los Angeles businesses and come out with men in handcuffs, being taken away in vehicles reminds me of another time and place in history. The chaos and violent protests in both times and places do not seem to portray life in a civilized country.

The men being taken from businesses in Los Angeles, were, I am thinking employed there. The problem is they have not entered our country legally. Shouldn’t the employers have the responsibility of asking to see evidence showing the person seeking work is a legal citizen? Inspectors go to liquor stores and stores selling cigarettes to make sure the businesses are not selling these products to underaged persons. If they are, isn’t the business owner fined?

If word got around that you could not be hired in America unless you had legal identification, employers would not be “enablers”. If immigrants are working for such a businessman or woman, procedure could be to fine the business and take the immigrant workers to a place to get legal papers.

Not all immigrants come to our country to commit crimes. If they have done so, they should be properly charged, judged and serve a proper sentence. Deporting families who have come here in desperation to get away from poverty, crime, or war, is not walking in their shoes.

Our Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island has a plaque engraved with a poem.

In part, it reads,

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest- tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.!”

— by Emma Lazarus, 1883

Let’s act justly for the good of all in a manner that shows the United States of America is a civilized, caring country.

Trudy Madetzke

Marshall