The My Turn article in the July 10 Arizona Republic by Edmundo Hidalgo states that he is hoping Arizona will put its best face forward, we certainly aren’t doing so with his ethnocentric diatribe. Perhaps if he spent more time understanding the English language, he would have a better grasp of Arizona’s immigration law. In particular he seems to not understand the meaning of three English words: Criminal, illegal, and alien.

By definition a criminal is a person who breaks the law. That which is illegal is any act or item that has been prohibited by law. An alien is any person who is a citizen of one country living in another country. I spent a couple of years living and working in Ontario and Quebec, Canada, and the whole time I was there I was an alien. I had entered with a visa legally so was classified as a legal resident alien. Had I been smuggled into Canada, I would have been an illegal alien. There is nothing demeaning in any part of any of these terms. They are not “hurtful” or “dehumanizing.” The only hate seeping into these terms are by those who hate truth.

He is right that there is a lot of inaccuracy in identifying the criminal impact of illegal aliens in the US, in part because very frequently there is not identification of illegal aliens in our criminal system and prisons. However, the US Department of Homeland Security say that the illegal population in the US it between 6 & 8% of the population. The US Border Patrol reports that 17% of illegals apprehended by them have prior US criminal records. Illegal aliens make up 22% of the prisoner population of Maricopa County. Criminal activity of Illegal aliens is clearly disproportionate to that of the general population.

I don’t know the source of the 9000 deaths caused by illegal aliens in the US cited by Hidalgo, or how accurate it may be; however, considering that there are about 12 million illegal aliens in the US, that is not an unrealistic figure when you consider murder, gang shootings, auto fatalities, and other crimes and accidents caused by illegal aliens. Hispanics are the victims of most crimes committed by illegal aliens. No matter what the actual number is, even one death caused by an illegal is too much considering that they have no right to be here to begin with.

I find Hidalgo’s column inaccurate, ethnocentric chauvinism, inflammatory, and extremely offensive. It’s a shame that he doesn’t have the same enthusiasm for rule of law and the well being of his fellow American Citizens as he does for those who have no right to be here.