Workplace immigration enforcement; rent control in Los Angeles; an oil well fight in Carpinteria

Not so fast

Re “Workplace raids go upstairs,� May 25

I began reading about San Diego restaurant owner Michel Malecot thinking “Good — they’re finally targeting the business owners who hire illegal workers.�

I finished the article with the opinion that the potential punishment is too punitive. Is it wise to turn a successful businessman into a penniless ward of the state, serving a prison sentence?

No, a far better solution would be to cut through the red tape, obtain green cards for Malecot’s employees and require him to double their pay and provide health insurance.

We must think in terms of our tax base. Make these workers above-board taxpayers contributing to their community.

Nicholas Orchard

Long Beach

On the border

Re “Obama adds Guard to help police border,� May 26

Why send troops to the Arizona border with instructions that they are not permitted to “make arrests or intervene� in the enforcement of immigration laws? This doesn’t make any sense.

For 25 years our government has given the American people nothing but excuses for its failure to secure our borders against illegal immigration and organized crime.

The U.S. government has the ability to secure someone else’s border — South Korea’s — yet fails to secure its own.

We the people have a right to do it ourselves.

Michael Samuels Jr.

Los Angeles

Re “Moving deeper into Arizona’s shadows,� May 24

Your article may have left readers with the impression that Maria and Salvador don’t have any chance of getting him legal residence.

However, based on the facts as stated, Salvador has a pretty good chance of getting residence through a family petition filed by his U.S. citizen wife.

It appears that they simply don’t want to take a chance on filing for residence because it would take them through the traditional method of emigrating — consular processing — because there is risk involved. Salvador would have to return to Mexico, file and win a waiver in order to return to the U.S. as a legal resident (green card holder).

My office has filed over 100 such waivers for clients. Although it might irk some of my colleagues to say so, it is my impression that the Immigration Service is very fair in deciding most waivers and sometimes downright generous.

A friend of mine likes to say that action cures fear. It’s true. Maybe it’s time for Salvador and Maria to just step up to the plate.

Gerald Gornik

Pasadena

The writer is an immigration and criminal defense attorney.

Re “Arizona’s Anglo insecurity,� Opinion, May 24

I am baffled as to why those who want leniency, compassion and a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants continue to shoot themselves in their collective foot.

Does Gregory Rodriguez think he’s going to win over the reluctant American citizens he disapproves of so vehemently by calling up the transgressions of their forebears?

Combine Rodriguez’s insulting column with the displays we’ve all witnessed on the streets over the past four years — Mexican flags, masked faces of would-be revolutionaries and raised fists — and is it any wonder that there are many good and decent (and liberal!) Americans who are quite concerned about this particular group of potential new citizens?

Laura Kline

Valley Village

Divided in Carpinteria

Re “Proposed oil rig divides beach town,� May 25

To claim, as Venoco’s spokesperson, Lisa Rivas, has, that Measure J is as “democratic a process as it gets� flies in the face of how our representative form of government works to ensure the health and safety of a community as well as to protect its fragile environment.

If this is so democratic, how come there are no planning associations or environmental organizations supporting Venoco’s Measure J? Sixteen community organizations have endorsed the “No on Measure J� campaign.

Furthermore, unlike the hundreds of community donors to the “No on J� campaign, there is only one donor supporting this so-called democratic ballot measure: Venoco. Venoco has spent more than $400,000, in a town where campaigns generally cost $5,000 to $10,000. This is democratic?

Venoco’s Measure J is an abuse of California’s initiative process. Carpinteria voters must defeat it.

Ted Rhodes

Carpinteria

Both sides of rent control

Re “Council blocks L.A. rent freeze,� May 22

City Council members finally witnessed firsthand what landlords have been subjected to for the last 30 years — dealing with unruly tenants and being victimized by tenant rights organizations — when disorderly protesting tenants had to be arrested at Friday’s meeting.

Just as U.S. citizens are tired of supporting immigrants who are in our country illegally, landlords are tired of supporting tenants by providing welfare assistance thinly veiled as rent control.

Landlords are also struggling in this recession. We’re often mom-and-pop business owners, and we have even more overhead expenses in maintaining the property than tenants do in making just one monthly rent payment.

Cheri Woods

Los Angeles

Re “Rents and reason,� Opinion, May 21

Arguing against rent control, Paul Habibi and Eric Sussman illustrate the modesty of rent increases under rent control with the example of a tenant who pays $500 a month.

Straw man. I assure them that that is considerably below the typical rent for a rent-controlled apartment in my neighborhood.

Under rent control, landlords benefit from stable tenants and a continuous flow of profit. If they want to make larger profits, they should buy a non-rent-controlled building, or a building in a high-turnover area.

Danila Oder

Los Angeles

As a housing attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, I see firsthand why rent control should not be abandoned.

During these economically uncertain times, more stability is what renters need, not less. Having the majority of renters know that they won’t be evicted unless for cause, and able to predict what their housing costs will be in the years ahead, is generally a good thing. As a result, throughout this city you can find stable neighborhoods where renters live for years with some relative sense of certainty about their housing costs. We need better enforcement of our housing laws, not less.

Rental housing has become less affordable compared to 16 years ago, and 58% of renters are still rent-burdened, meaning that they pay more than 30% of their income on rent. Clearly there is still a need to have a mechanism to curb unreasonable rent hikes.

Fernando Gaytan

Los Angeles

The writer is a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

A question of life

Re “A creation question,� Editorial, May 24

The development of a living cell that is controlled entirely by DNA made from laboratory chemicals is indeed a major step toward the creation of artificial life.

It is also one more nail in God’s coffin!

David Michels

Encino

A group of scientists, using a blueprint of existing DNA, poke, twist and “tweak� it until they have turned it into something else, and your editorial claims this is evidence that life had “arisen naturally� (by chance)?

It sounds like intelligent design to me.

Sylvia Alloway

Granada Hills