More on Migrants

Dear Editor:

(In response to Mr. Eidinger)

Mr. Eidinger, I am glad we agree that migrants should not be placed on Floyd Bennett Field, but I take issue with some of your points. Although Floyd Bennett Field is located in Brooklyn, it’s only 10 minutes away and directly connected to us via the Marine Parkway Bridge. Nothing is stopping 7,500 single adult males from walking directly into the Rockaway community. It still poses the same health and safety risks I addressed earlier…We are also not an unknown community! Rockaway gets thousands of visitors each summer from Manhattan and other neighboring boroughs. We happen to be the famous Rockaway Beach featured in the song by The Ramones.

I also took issue with your claim that anti-vaxxers in America were to blame for the rise in deadly diseases. These migrants are from countries that do not have, or require, such vaccines. The diseases spreading currently are frequently seen in their countries of origin and, while they are not to blame for getting sick, one cannot ignore the fact that they are the arbiters of its spread. Vaccines are not meant to stop disease spread either, only prevent you from getting seriously sick as a result of contact with the pathogen. NY also has one of the highest vaccination rates in the country, which means U.S. citizens are not contributing to this current spread.

Your illegal immigration numbers are off. In 2020, there were 646,822 illegal border crossings compared to the 1.1 million at the height of the pandemic. Biden, however, saw over 1.9 million illegal border crossings in his first year! In fiscal year 2022, that number went up to 2.7 million, while fiscal year 2023 has seen 2.5 million encounters so far. That is a significant difference in border crossings between the two presidencies. While it is true that people could still climb the border wall, that does not mean it was rendered ineffective. CBP has argued that this makes arrests that much easier! The reason being that it forces migrants to be slower, thereby giving agents time to show up and make arrests. I encourage you to read the article titled “The Border Wall System is Deployed, Effective, and Disrupting Criminals and Smugglers,” which contains CBP data for the fiscal years 2018-2020. You were right when you said that the wall would cost money to maintain, but safety is something one cannot put a price tag on. Trump factored in the costs by increasing tariffs on Mexico, which generated a profit of about 69 billion dollars! So when Trump said Mexico would pay for the wall, this is what he meant.

The U.S. is the best place in the world, as evidenced by the fact that we take in over half of the world’s immigrants every year. Migrants leave their countries in droves just to come here, but the majority of them do it legally. It is not fair to the legal migrants living in just as dire circumstances to be skipped over in line by the illegal ones. The solution is not to decrease immigration, but to enforce the laws of this country as migrants come in. Illegal migrants should be deported, while legal immigrants should be vetted and then fast-tracked for citizenship.

Katie Larkin
Rockaway Republican Club