Since I moved to Durham two years ago from California, I have seen the situation for local Spanish-speaking immigrants go from tenuous to downright treacherous.

And now there are even threats against the civic leaders working to uplift and empower the immigrant community while struggling to orient them to their new, if temporary, home. This is hateful and ignorant behavior.

We can't make this immigration thing just disappear; it is an economic reality that people must migrate in search of livelihood. If the U.S. hadn't criminalized border crossing to such a degree that people have to risk their lives to get here, many immigrants would return home after a short season of work.

We have made that age-old tradition so difficult that more people come to stay, bringing families with them. We take their licenses away and then arrest them for driving. We tell them to learn English and get educated and then turn them away at the door of higher education. We thrive on their food, music, dance and warm culture, and then demonize them as vagrants and outlaws.

If you don't like our immigration policy and enforcement, write a letter to your representatives. Leave the good people alone.

Rebecca Crocker

Durham