Readers React: Note to asylum-seekers: When you arrive at the American border, wave the American flag

To the editor: The would-be adult immigrants in the caravan of asylum-seekers to the U.S. have made a life-changing decision, for themselves and their children, to abandon their homes for protective residence in another country. I am sympathetic to them because of the conditions they have endured and would continue to endure had they stayed in their home countries. (“After a day, U.S. allows eight caravan migrants to request asylum as scores more wait in Tijuana,” May 1)

They want to enter the United States lawfully — but upon reaching the border in Tijuana, some of them exhibited unlawful behavior by climbing the fence on U.S. territory.

You reported that some of the asylum-seekers waved Honduran flags. They would elicit more support and sympathy from our administration and Border Patrol agents if they waved American flags.

Gerald Benecke, Malibu

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To the editor: Grateful immigrants happily wave their home countries’ flags as they scale the border fence in Tijuana. That sure makes me happy to invite them to my country.

I am old enough to remember the boats loaded with Cubans coming to America to escape communism. I never saw a Cuban flag or expressions of the longing to romanticize Cuba. Most were happy and grateful to be here.

I did see some Americans disapprove of their arrival, but that feeling seemed to have died away rather quickly in Miami.

William Baker, Yorba Linda

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To the editor: As Steve Lopez reports in his April 25 column, “Pro- and anti-Trump forces score points on immigration, but both sides are losing,” the cities that are protesting California’s so-called sanctuary state law are being labeled “racist.”

Lopez fairly points out the costs of illegal immigration in terms of healthcare, education, incarceration and public services. I would add to that the fact that it is indeed unlawful to come to the United States without getting permission to enter or stay.

We have a system set up to welcome a manageable number of newcomers, keeping our country diverse and culturally rich. The current influx runs afoul of that goal.

Perhaps “concerned citizen” is a more apt term than “racist.”

Kathleen Robertson, Orinda, Calif.

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