David George’s thoughtful letter of 25 July is comprised mainly of omissions. This might seem an improvement on his utter and abject silence regarding the imprisonment of babies, unless one reads his letter.

It is legal to seek asylum in the USA. Not all aspirants are unlawful. Not all unlawful crossings are made by murderers or undesirables.

Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) was formed in the streets and prisons of California by people who had fled decades of civil war in Central America; war fomented as a matter of US Government policy for purposes as dubious and pernicious as monopolizing the banana trade, or deflecting the proxy encroachment of the Soviet Union (the remnants of which we are now encouraged to embrace by state representative Nino Vitale). As for criminal gangs, Americans have more to fear from congress than MS13.

The United States Immigration Commission concluded in the infamous 1911 Dillingham report: “Certain kinds of criminality are inherent in the Italian race. In the popular mind, crimes of personal violence, robbery, blackmail and extortion are peculiar to the people of Italy.”

By nativist, anti-immigration Americans of that time, Italians, mostly southern Italians, were compared to lower primates. They were depicted as rapists and savages. The intent of The Immigration Act of 1924 was to ban most Italians from immigrating. As a direct result, immigration from Italy decreased by 90 percent.

The attempt to diminish people by use of odious stereotypes is always vulgar, deceptive, destructive, and predictable. it is never crafty.

Robert Puglia

Urbana