Marvin's Journey: Here's what you had to say

Here is a sampling of responses to questions posed by the Star about "Marvin's Journey," a three-day series published last week that chronicled to the journey of illegal immigrant Marvin Hernandez from El Salvador, through Southern Arizona to his new home in Boston.

Jeffry Scott / Staff
Marvin Hernandez came to this country illegally from El Salvador and now lives and works in the Boston area.

First, hats off to Ignacio Ibarra and Jeffry Scott. Marvelous three articles. Very good in-depth coverage. There is a great need in the Boston area for (people to do) work that we, U.S. citizens, don't want to do. Something has to be done. It's very expensive for people to come and the personal sacrifices that they make.

Joe Kelly, Tucson

If I am correct there was a time when we had an official amount of immigrants that could come into our country. It seems to me that we are being overrun, not only from the Latin American countries but all over. We have enough problems of our own. No question that there's poverty and wars in other country. We are running out of resources for our own people.

Robert Crain, Tucson

Does it make you change your mind about them and their attempts to cross into this country? NO! If illegal immigrants make it into this country and prosper, should they be allowed to stay? NO! Should the status of illegal immigrants be considered on a case-by-case basis? NO! They SHOULD be automatically returned. Should more be done to regulate and control the flow of illegal immigrants? YES! Easier access? Easier access? You have GOT to be KIDDING!!! And what about our relations with Mexico and other Latin American countries? Should the United States push them to more aggressively help control illegal immigration? YES! The more they cooperate, the more aid they receive.

Michael Mitchell, Tucson

In answer to the questions you posed in this morning's Star concerning illegal immigration, no, it didn't change my mind about them as I have always thought we should do more to help them. The sense of urgency was heightened by Marvin's story. I wish we could collaborate with (Mexican) President Fox and develop a program that would allow illegals to cross the border and work without the constant fear of being caught and deported. While I was raising my children, I would have crossed the border, over and over and over again, if it meant putting food on the table for my little ones.

Jeanne Joyce Williquett,
Tucson

Ignacio Ibarra's masterful series about the journey of Marvin Hernandez should remind many of us that we, too, are the descendants of immigrants. In other times, our families followed similar paths, and faced grave perils, in order to achieve their dreams of freedom in the United States. Many of them were forced to resort to ruse or subterfuge to avoid government restrictions that would have returned them to their lands of oppression. While Harvard University is today not a part of Marvin Hernandez's world in Boston, it may one day become the center of the world for Marvin's children-to-be. Our nation was built upon this dream - it will stagnate unless we encourage those who truly believe in it to live it among us.

Ivan Abrams, Tucson

Why can't the Star take an unbiased approach to such "news" and support the laws and Constitution of this once great country instead of trying to tear it down?

Henry J. Selfridge, Tucson

Your series on illegal immigration showed me the dark soulful eyes, the impoverished living and the quest for a more secure, affluent life. Spare me. I can say the same for the pack rat living in my wood pile out back. The United States cannot solve the problems of the world . . . especially when we do not insist that these people become Americans with the cultural mindset that entails.

Mack Hitch, Tucson

I believe that this type of article is just what is needed in order for the average North American to understand that we have neighbors and brothers and sisters that live in the other Americas and that they are enduring great amounts of suffering in order to make gains in their lives.

Richard Biocca, Tucson

Your continuing article on Marvin Hernandez, a criminal who has broken the laws of this country, is bewildering. Why you would aid and abet a criminal, and then flaunt this behavior in front of the law enforcement agencies of this country is incomprehensible. Perhaps you believe that we should have no immigration laws whatsoever and allow any who wish to do so to enter this country.

John Dorgan, Tucson

It would be nice if the U.S. could grant permanent residency to all the individual immigrants like Marvin, even low-skilled and illegal. However, when Washington, D.C., sets our immigration policy, they should have vision and examine not only the fiscal and economic consequences of mass immigration, but the environmental, social and political impacts as well. The U.S. almost quadrupled its population in the 20th century despite the fact that this country had some sort of time-out from mass immigration from 1925 to 1965. Assuming that all natives and immigrants are Nobel Laureates, is it desirable that the U.S. should become as crowded as China? Unfortunately, vision is what most American policy-makers don't have.

Yeh Ling-Ling,

Diversity Alliance
for a Sustainable America

Oakland, CA

Instead of yet another sympathetic story told from the viewpoint of a long-suffering illegal alien, why don't the media ever examine the wrongs done to Americans by a nonexistent enforcement policy that largely overlooks illegal immigration? What about the injustice of replacing over-40 high-tech employees with immigrants willing to accept salaries of 30-50 percent less? What about the injustice to blue-collar workers, black and white, who see their jobs which once paid a living wage now done by illegal immigrants for $6-7 per hour? What about the injustice to taxpayers, who must bear the increasing costs of infrastructure and services for low-paid immigrants and their families?

Brenda Walker, Berkeley CA

I hope that Marvin Hernandez is able to become a United States citizen some time in the future if he wants to. During the past 200 years, our country has consistently been revitalized and made great by its immigrants. My ancestors on my mother's side of my family emigrated from Ireland in 1850 during the great potato famine. Conditions in Ireland were desperate at that time, similar to those today in El Salvador. Marvin Hernandez came here for a chance at a better life just as my great-grandfather did 150 years ago. The times are different, but the story is the same.

John Bradley, Tucson

In reality, if you go back far enough, in most cases only a century, we are are all immigrants who benefit from the propositions this country was founded on. Even the Native Americans immigrated across the Bering land bridge eons ago. This country is big enough, empty enough in many places, and economically secure enough to admit hundreds of thousands more people. To deny this is selfish or maybe just running scared. With high-minded intentions to do the right thing, I bet we can successfully settle many thousands now held out.

Arthur D. Silver, Tucson

Dear Marvin: Welcome to the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. I wonder how our slave-holding white-guy founding fathers (who wrote our Constitution and Bill of Rights with the 2nd Amendment so dear to our gun-toting NRA buddies) would have felt if they had been threatened with deportation by the Indians whose land they had stolen. Hey . . . I've got an idea. Let's trade Pat Buchanan for Marvin Hernandez. Send Pat back to Ireland - if they'd have him.

Russ Petersen, Tucson

It's very nice of the author to be so compassionate for illegal aliens. Most of us, Americans, are willing to help those in need. This is, perhaps, one of the main reasons why this country is such a great place to live. Supporting those who entered the course of collision with the law is a different matter, though. If America is a lifeboat for the poor and oppressed who immigrate to this country to improve their lives, then, as it is the case with any lifeboat, its capacity is not unlimited. If we let all the needy people in, we would all sink and there would be no lifeboat anymore.

Dr. Marek A. Suchenek,
Redondo Beach, CA

Since the end of the Civil War and slavery, rich farmers, factory owners, builders, etc. have lured cheap labor here from poor countries. They have gotten wealthier while the rest of us have paid for school, health care and prisons to accommodate these immigrants. If we do not stop this mass immigration, our grandchildren will be living their own El Salvador.

Frances Nixon, Tucson

Illegal aliens, in my opinion, are not helping the United States. More and more Americans are fed up with all the illegalities that go with people entering this nation illegally. And in my experience the illegalities are exactly what is wrong with all of the south of the border countries. They are in total decay and chaos because this sort of activity is happening throughout Mexico and South America. I wish these people would be deported and not rewarded. We don't need to turn this once great country into the squalor that they come from! But thank you for your interesting story!

Priscilla Espinoza,
Nuevo, CA

Let us suppose that we could wave a magic wand and all the illegal immigrants would "disappear." It is my belief that chaos would ensue. It is difficult for me to be biased toward these people, when I know that I would be doing the same thing if I were in their situation!

Nancy H. TerBush,
Green Valley