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01/28/08 - An Ohio Reader Predicts That California Will Soon Qualify For Foreign Aid

From: Robert Buss (e-mail him)

Re: Joe Guzzardi's Column: An Immigration Lawyer And Fiancee Visa Specialist Agrees With Joe That Changes Are Needed

I am a long-standing opponent of illegal immigration but feel that if some level of immigration is inevitable, we must do a much better job at screening the people who are legally admitted, including immigrants from Europe and the former Soviet Union.

The qualifications of those who pass the selection process would far exceed those who wade across the Rio Grande or hide in the back of a truck while they are transported from Mexico to one of our many sanctuary cities.

People from the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries who immigrate legally are by and large highly educated and motivated to learn English, contribute to society and become real Americans.

I offer as examples my wife Oksana who I married when she was 36 and our daughter Julia. The K-1 visa, of which Guzzardi takes a dim view, facilitated our matrimony.

Oksana and Julia have learned English, embraced our culture and traditions (sadly to the exclusion of NFL Football and Major League Baseball) and are proud to be "heritage Americans", a term I referred to in an earlier letter you published. As I mentioned in that letter, an American Flag went up in front of our home on the day they became citizens and it is flying proudly outside our home at this very moment.

My wife and I know scores of couples in the Dallas area that have real and happy marriages that include fiancée brides, many of which are blessed by children. The women are in the 30s and many like my wife had good jobs in their native counties but were willing to leave those jobs and their families (always reluctantly) behind for the chance to have a family that included the proverbial good man.

Of course there are also horror stories like Guzzardi referred to in his columns. Those generally involve younger women on the make and much older men. Those marriages do have a high rate of failure.

Perhaps the best answer is to impose an age limit (say 30) on the women and men who can be admitted under the Fiancée Visa program. This would limit scamming opportunities.

Buss adds that he was able to get Oksana to watch the half-time show of last year's Super Bowl by reminding her that Sting was the featured act. He hopes she is a Tom Petty fan, too. A previous letter from Buss introducing the concept of the "heritage American" is here.