The bill further contributes to the rule of law by providing to those who want to stay here an incentive to come forward and take a legal pathway to do so. This will make it easier to find, prosecute and deport the criminal elements who are hiding among the immigrant community.

This is how the rule of law works. This is why we have a Congress, to address problems as they arise and resolve them. Not trusting the government is the path to anarchy, not to the rule of law.

Please, Senator, don't embrace the irrational and xenophobic fears of the Pat Buchanans of the day. Immigration reform is not as Buchanan has said, "the beginning of the end of the United States as we know it." The social and economic benefits of immigration are well understood and at the core of our national history and identity.

There is no reason to believe that Mexican and other Hispanic immigrants will not mirror, over time, the patterns of other immigrants.

According to your friend, Linda Chavez, studies show that 96 percent of third-generation Mexican-Americans prefer to speak English at home and 78 percent of third-generation Mexican-Americans cannot speak Spanish at all. Furthermore, these immigrants do not cost our system. The National Research Council found that on average each immigrant contributes $102,000 more in taxes than benefits received.

As Chavez notes, "The widely cited prediction that by midcentury Hispanics will represent fully one-third of the U.S. population fails to take into account that increasing numbers of these so-called Hispanics will have only one grandparent or great-grandparent of Hispanic heritage. At which point Hispanic ethnicity will mean little more than German, Italian or Irish ethnicity does today."

The wonder of America is that it is so durable, yet so supple. Trust those qualities, Senator.

Sincerely,

Many of your constituents

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Joseph A. Cannon is editor of the Deseret Morning News