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Commentary by Hank F. Miller Jr. 

"Not too long ago I returned to my hometown on a long overdue visit to Gloucester City, N. J." While on one of my many walks I went to my old neighborhood area convenience store to get a sweet roll and a cup of coffee. Standing at a rack of newspapers and magazines, I noticed a weekend addition of a local New Jersey daily with a front-page headline that caught my eye:  "TOWN MAKES ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS FEEL UNWELCOME."

Variations on this theme have been reported all across the country for years: as numbers of illegals has crept up, more towns have cracked down. There are today anywhere from 12 million to 20 million illegal's in our country really at this point in time no one really knows just how many are here. This Particular Town was mulling over a get-tough ordinance that would deny businesses a range of permits and contracts penalize them for five years if they hired illegal's, and would fine landlords who rented to "undocumented "aliens or who failed to maintain proper documentation on the aliens. 

Nationally, this has been going on where the towns heard from immigration activists and ACLU lawyers along with civil rights lawyers sniffing around for "racial profiling." Or perhaps they have missed the word illegal completely in the headline. We are a nation of laws, and these aliens are here illegally. My question is: Why do we need to care how they feel about being here? How about a page-one piece above the fold on how illegal aliens make taxpaying citizens feel. Yes, and just think of all the immigrants who waited and came through the front door the way they are supposed to waiting many years to migrate legally to our beautiful shores to become American citizens the through the proper channels. 

From what I saw and read while there, from downtown to small towns to suburbia America, unchecked illegal immigration is wreaking havoc on all kinds of communities including Gloucester City my home town. The crisis has spun out of control completely in many places and it's getting worse every day. Small wonder such influxes invariably lead to overcrowded classrooms, spikes in crime (including drug use and gangs) and generally overburdened health-care and hospital services, and generally also compromised quality of life. It seems that political issues prove to be elusive, as immigration has become a hot button wedge issue, during campaigning for the presidency. 

One faction demands a guest worker program but doesn't dare call it amnesty. Another says close the borders, another build higher fence, and make illegal immigration a felony. Some top democrats have sided with Bush's guest worker program plan. Some Republicans however want troops and a high-tech fence along the border, which isn't a bad idea but still nothing gets done. On many occasions here in Japan on TV, CNN, The Situation Room," illegal immigrants carrying Mexican flags, demanding their rights and complaining the United States may actually want to have some control over who comes here. Can you imagine that? 

"Just who do they think they are anyway to have any right to do anything at all as illegal immigrants? But unfortunately they do have rights even illegal immigrants have rights you know. I heard an ACLU lawyer state so we are a nation of laws and proud to have them laws that govern us. 

While spending the holidays in my home town, Gloucester City. I had the opportunity of talking with many people regarding the illegal immigration problem, as well as other problems taking place there regarding illegals.  I was surprised to see so many foreign looking people living and working in Gloucester City, I would think that these people have been checked out as well and were documented there illegally. 

I asked many people back there just how it has affected their lives with illegal aliens being seen and working in Gloucester City, my home town and thus written above was most of the responses I received there was a lot more but I  won't write about that if you know what I am talking about. I have heard this from talking with my brother as well many family members and very good friends and other long time Gloucester city residents and the residents of surrounding areas.  

Warm Regards from Sunny Kitakyushu City, Japan 

Hank F. Miller Jr.