Meeting on illegal immigrants a farce
The immigration meeting at the Hemmens Auditorium was nothing short of a farce.
As it was being taped, only harmless and inane questions were chosen by the mayor so that no controversy was attached to his glowing picture of Elgin's environment.
Without the illegal immigrants here, the rivers would stop flowing, the downtown would go into bankruptcy and the sky would fall.
After the sanitized taping, the real story came out, with real people asking real embarrassing questions.
After the glowing commercial by the mayor and the really hard questions were asked and fumbled over, the results will be the same.
The city will do nothing about a serious problem that concerns a great many people.
Unless you express interest in an upscale condo, the mayor doesn't want to hear about it.
Of course, illegal immigrants and even legal ones are a Republican's dream.
You don't have to pay them very much, there are no benefits and you can threaten them with losing their green cards so they don't have to be treated fairly.
The truth is that being here illegally is being criminal by the very definition of "illegal." Illegal entrants are a slap in the face for those who have taken the time, energy and commitment of going through the system.
They use services that they don't pay for and are a drain on the economy.
Over $9 billion is sent back to Mexico every year, which is one third of Mexico's gross national product. That is $9 billion not being spent domestically.
Naturally, Mexico is very happy with this state of affairs. It's free money.
This obsession with bilingual signage is outrageous. Why should I have to learn Spanish when this is my country?
Why are there no signs in Cambodian, Vietnamese, Polish, various Asian Indian dialects, and other languages of the many nationalities that have settled in Elgin?
The reason is they learn English as soon as they arrive. It should be illegal to have any bilingual signage at all.
I wholeheartedly welcome any immigrant when they demonstrate that they are willing to become full-fledged members of the community in which they want to live.
While doing research on the Jewish families in the Elgin area, I found a story about Morris Puklin the first of the Puklin family here.
He came from Russia around 1900 and settled in Hartford, Conn. The first three things he did were sign up for English classes, find a job and find a place to live. This is the real heritage of this country.
Raleigh Sutton
Elgin