Letters

It is this American's opinion that since America is a nation of immigrants, it's time to recall the words of Emma Lazarus, who in 1883 penned these words: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Little did Emma Lazarus know how foolishly that golden door has been flung open and how often. Millions of illegal aliens have crossed America's borders and we have learned the tragic consequences.

Among those who have come are the diseased. Our late-great friend, Dr. Madeleine Cosman, with degrees in both law and medicine, warned of the illegals crossing into America unexamined. We pretty much know what they carry in their backpacks. However, we do not know what they carry in their bodies.

Author of the book, "Who Owns Your Body," Dr. Cosman recalled that when our grandparents came to America, they kissed the ground of New York's Ellis Island, then stripped naked, and coughed hard. Every legal immigrant, prior to 1924, was examined for infectious diseases upon arrival and tested for tuberculosis. Anyone infected was shipped back to the "old country."

Today, illegal aliens stop at no medical checkpoint. Whoever walks through our foolishly unsecured open golden door comes in healthy or sick. America has fast become the hospital to the world. Horrendous diseases that long ago America conquered, are now resurfacing.

Horrific diseases (common in Third-World poverty and medical ignorance) suddenly are appearing in our American emergency rooms and medical offices. The illegal aliens crossing our borders come with an invisible invasion of deadly diseases.

Many illegals who skulked across our borders have tuberculosis (TB). That disease had all but disappeared, thanks to excellent hygiene and modern drugs. But now, there's a new culprit - new multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).

A 2003 outbreak of hepatitis A near Pittsburgh, Pa., endangered 3,000 residents. The outbreak was the result of infected Mexican-grown scallions and illegal alien kitchen workers.

It is time to slam the golden door shut!

DONALD JACKSON

Carson City

Online comments lowers journalistic standards

Living at the nexus of political opinion in Nevada, the Appeal has usually presented an honest look at the issues. However, the current practice of adding reader comments to the end of articles online has the effect of lowering that standard. The comments appear to the reader to be an extension of the article. They represent only the view of a very few (usually the same ones each day) who use that forum to spew race, gender, ethnic and class hatred for the most part. Most newspapers which allow comments hide them so the reader has to take an effort to find them. The ones in the Appeal are clearly visible for all to see. I urge the editor of the Appeal to change this practice.

ROGER VOLKER

Carson City