Recourse for illegal immigrants

The author of the Opinion page article "Zoe Baird Is Famous, Her Nanny Is Forgotten," Feb. 12, believes America should continue its earlier tradition of admitting all of those people who can manage to get here. The author seems to believe this is still the America of 1900 - half empty, impacted little environmentally, with dynamically expanding job opportunities.

There are an estimated 3 million to 5 million illegal aliens in the United States. They must be denied citizen rights, otherwise we will be overwhelmed by the tens of millions of people who, surveys show, plan to immigrate to the US.

Environmental failure is also becoming the greatest threat to improving human prospects. Any general improvement in our ailing life-support systems will require our population to be stabilized, as other industrialized nations are doing. Instead, excessive immigration is causing rapid expansion of our population.

Never has the nation been less able to provide for poor immigrants. There are many positive factors regarding current immigration, if the process is legal, selective, and matched to US needs. Charles R. Ross, Corvallis, Ore.

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