To build a wall or not? What is your opinion? Do you agree with the Democrats that anybody and everybody should be allowed to come into our country? Or with the Republicans that immigration should be selective and well controlled?

If you agree with the Democrats, are you prepared to accept immigrants into your neighborhood who are uneducated, unskilled, unemployable, speak no English, and maybe have a criminal background? They can’t all go somewhere else.

Remember the Great Wall of China? It is several thousand miles long. President Trump’s wall would only be a blip compared to it. China’s wall was built to keep out raiding parties of nomadic tribes. At one point one million Chinese soldiers manned the wall. Over time other uses for the wall evolved; namely for collecting tariffs on traded goods, and for restricting immigration.

When the trade routes (The Silk Road) in Europe and into China were developed, many traders came into China and some stayed. China became concerned that its culture might be altered, so all immigration was stopped. If the Democrats have their way, our culture will be changed. It is already suffering.

Today many countries have walls. From Michael Barone’s editorial  in the Observer on Sunday, January 13, 2019: Israel’s wall with the West Bank, Morocco’s with Algeria, India’s with Bangladesh, Hungary’s with Serbia and others have reduced illegal crossings to near zero. This year France, Iraq, Lithuania, Estonia and Norway are putting up walls.  

From Byron York’s Observer editorial on February 6, 2019: Democrat House Speaker Pelosi called the wall “an immorality between nations.” But Democrat Rep. Hakeem Jefferies of New York said recently: In the past, we have supported … enhanced fencing. And I think that’s something that’s reasonable that should be on the table.

Pelosi and other flip-flop Democrat leaders supported the wall a few years ago, but now oppose it simply because they hate President Trump. They simply cannot accept that the American voters were tired of eight years of do-nothing Democrats.

In the late 1930s, the United States allowed immigrants to come in to escape Nazi Germany — but only if they could prove they had means to support themselves, or if they had a sponsor in America who would support them.

We need skilled, educated immigrants who have something to offer our country. We already have enough people who depend on our tax dollars to provide them a free living: free housing, free food, free transportation,  free healthcare, and free spending money

Now I don’t want you to think that I support zero immigration. Some immigrants have played a  big role in the development of our country in many areas. Chinese immigrants provided the labor to build the Transcontinental Railroad, and Wernher von Braun, a German immigrant, was instrumental in developing our space program. In between those two extremes, other immigrants have made significant contributions in other areas.

Despite what the Democrats say, we cannot support the masses who want to come here who are simply unhappy in their country. They do not have a right to come here as they suggest.

To repeat a phrase I hear often, “a country without controlled borders is not a country.”

Bruce Leigh

Moultrie