Immigration

Thousands of immigrants from India have crossed into the United States illegally at the southern tip of Texas in the last year, part of a mysterious and rapidly growing human-smuggling pipeline that is backing up court dockets, filling detention centers and triggering investigations. The immigrants, mostly young men from poor villages, say they are fleeing religious and political persecution. More than 1,600 Indians have been caught since the influx began here early last year, while an undetermined number, perhaps thousands, are believed to have sneaked through undetected, according to U.S. border authorities.

Re "Baca may defy proposed Trust Act," Aug. 25 L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca's commitment to violate a proposed state law he disagrees with in favor of a discretionary federal immigration law he prefers smacks of political opportunism, not public service. Baca's statements make clear the need for the governor to sign the Trust Act. Baca misunderstands federal law. It provides only for voluntary cooperation by local law enforcement with immigration agency detention requests.

When David Riker set out to make his film "The Girl," he didn't want to shoot another heart-rending saga about poor, desperate Mexicans hellbent on crossing the border. Instead, he says, he aimed to create a character who could "turn the border upside-down. " So the indie screenwriter-director invented Ashley, a struggling south Texas single mom who decides to boost her meager big-box store clerk's pay by smuggling migrants across the Rio Grande. But when a tragic twist occurs, and a Mexican girl is left motherless, it is Ashley herself who winds up retracing the steps of the immigrant journey, but in reverse, all the way to a cloud-swept Oaxacan mountain village.

Re "Beck eases LAPD deport policy," Oct. 5 Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck wants to distance himself from federal immigration law, which he says is unfair to illegal immigrants suspected of committing petty offenses. We don't understand the reluctance to enforce our laws or the attitude that we don't want to make life inconvenient or uncomfortable for those illegally in this country. While it's obvious that serious and violent criminals deserve priority, petty offenses are quality-of-life issues that affect us all. We have continued to say one thing about immigration while doing another, which only encourages illegal immigration.

Re "Keeping families intact," Editorial, July 31 The Times calls Congress cowardly for refusing to undertake comprehensive immigration reform. Half of the Senate would like to see undocumented immigrants have a path to citizenship or at least be able to stay on a green card or work visa, and the other half would like to see illegal immigrants deported. Each side is passionate about its position, and the parties, thanks to their primary elections, offer no opportunity for compromise.

CODY, Wyo.--Alan Simpson has spent the better part of two years flying around the country ticking people off, though that's putting it more politely than the former Wyoming senator does. Simpson is the Republican half of the Simpson-Bowles duo (Erskine being the Democrat) that produced a 2010 deficit reduction plan that gored just about every sacred cow in Washington before succumbing to a scarcely lamented death. He continues to campaign around the country for the controversial recipe of tax hikes, spending cuts and entitlement reforms.

Re "Mayor wants city to issue photo IDs," Oct. 13 To find out the latest regarding California politicians making illegal immigrants feel right at home regardless of our laws, all one has to do is read The Times to know that L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is leading the charge in calling on the city to issue them IDs that double as prepaid ATM cards. Seriously, why continue with this pretense of a sovereign border and, more important, law and order? Like many citizens, I want this routine halted.

Republicans hope to use their convention to spotlight some of the party's rising Latino stars --  Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Senate hopeful Ted Cruz of Texas all have prominent speaking roles. But at Monday's news briefing for Spanish-language press, the headliner was neither rising nor Latino, but John H. Sununu, the former governor of New Hampshire and chief of staff in George H.W. Bush's White House. Despite his Palestinian and Lebanese ancestry, Sununu speaks fairly fluent Spanish by virtue of his mother's birth in El Salvador and his childhood in Havana.