Governor Carcieri’s “Crackdown on illegal immigrants” (news, March 28) is based on misconceptions, knee-jerk social conservatism, and “last one in” hostility toward new immigrant groups.

He sanctimoniously says that he is not against immigrants, only illegal immigrants. As if immigrants can choose to be legal or illegal.

Our ancestors who came legally weren’t more righteous; they had the opportunity to enter legally. Early settlers didn’t need visas, and almost everyone who came through Ellis Island was admitted.

Ellis Island is a museum now. Today’s immigrants had better be political refugees or married to a citizen. Principled immigration lawyers won’t take employment-based green-card cases anymore, because the backlog is so hopeless.

It is myth that immigrants are more criminal than the general population, create large social costs, and don’t pay taxes. Studies show that, over the long term, they contribute to rather than drag on the economy. Without them, we have labor shortages; and that situation will worsen as the native-born population ages.

They do pay taxes — their rent goes toward property taxes, and many pay income taxes using Tax Identification Numbers. They buy consumer goods, start businesses, revive deteriorating neighborhoods. They are here to work, often two or three jobs. They get on waiting lists for English classes. Some have children in school, but has this been a nation to begrudge children a public education?

One truth in the governor’s position is that this is a problem the federal government has failed to address. His approach, however, perpetuates an underclass of people who can’t get basic needs like driver’s licenses, who can’t go to college (even top high-school graduates who have been here in Rhode Island most of their lives), who live every day in fear. If arrested, they will spend weeks in prison (at public expense) and be deported, unable to support families left here and in their countries.

Where is the public purpose in all this?

SUSAN P. MORRISON

North Falmouth, Mass.