Tim writes:

Rep. Zoe Lofgren argues for continuing our mass immigration policy thusly: ``If you have a Linus Torvalds, the Scandinavian inventor of the operating system Linux, are you going to say, `You can't come here?' ''

The poverty of her logic is apparent by transposing the question: If you have a Maximiliano Esparza, a Mexican illegal immigrant accused of raping two nuns and strangling one with her rosary beads in Klamath Falls last week, are you going to say, ``You can't come here?''

Lofgren conveniently misses the point about tightening U.S. immigration policy. It is not about Linus Torvalds. It is about securing our borders against criminals and terrorists; it is about maintaining opportunity for higher education for American students instead of favoring hundreds of thousands of foreigners; it is about showing concern that Americans have jobs in high tech rather than masses of cheaper workers from abroad; and it is about preserving a state from being paved over for houses and strip malls for ever more newcomers.

Lofgren should recall whom she was elected to serve.