by Martha Rhodes

Created on: February 21, 2008

First off, I am not against legal immigration to the United States, although I don't see why Mexican nationals should be given preference over every other nationality when it comes to immigration to the United States.

My family has four generations of members that have proudly served in our United States military, at a great cost in some instances. While everyone has been debating our own border security and the border fence, my son has been providing security for Korea's borders as a member of the United States Air Force. My son is married to a Rumanian national. My daughter is married to a man from Nepal, both are here in this country legally. My grandchildren have dual citizenships. For these reasons, I have no fear of being called a racist because of my views on United States immigration laws. I am simply not a racist. My son's father is of Mexican descent and I was adopted with an unknown racial background.

I resent the fact that when the border fence is debated, it always seems to focus on the Mexican nationals and how they are being inconvenienced by enforcement of immigration laws. I am quite certain that other nationalities are just as capable of picking fruits and vegetables; therefore giving Mexican nationals immigration preferences is racist.

The fence was not proposed to keep out Mexicans, it was proposed because it became blatantly obvious that we needed to secure our borders. It was not proposed to keep out migrant farm workers, it was proposed because there are a lot of people out there who want to destroy as many American lives as they can and it's possible for them to look like a Mexican national. Before 9/11, if they had a dark complexion and spoke Spanish, their presence here in the United States would have simply been ignored as it had been for centuries. But now, in order to provide security for our United States citizens, it has become necessary to know the intent of each and every person that enters our borders. The only way to do that is to first identify them. I'm just not going to feel bad about the inconvenienced illegal immigrants no matter what perfectly harmless reasons they are here.

When it comes to immigration enforcement, I am expected to believe that rounding up 12 million illegal immigrants is an impossible feat. Hogwash. The first thing to do is identify them. That can be done through employers, social services, giving the police the actual authority to question citizenship when a person can't provide identification, asking

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