Jonette Christian’s sensible, reasoned Maine Voices column on immigration (“There are common-sense, fact-based ways to fix immigration in U.S.,” April 21) was, unfortunately, greeted with an unfair, scurrilous response by a reader (“Letter to the editor: Guest columnist insidiously advocates ethnic cleansing,” April 27).

The letter writer, Grayson Lookner, makes the absurd comment that Christian “espouses mass deportation of immigrants, which is the first step towards ethnic cleansing.” Christian’s focus is on the whole migrant population, including legal and illegal aliens, which cuts across all population groups.

The Department of Homeland Security 2015 Yearbook lists immigrants from 196 countries, practically all countries in the world, who received green cards – hardly a focus on ethnic groups.

While the illegal alien population is skewed toward Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America, it includes significant representation from Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa; e.g., all population groups, the Pew Research Center reported in an April 25 paper (“As Mexican share declined, U.S. unauthorized immigrant population fell in 2015 below recession level“).

The writer also makes two references to the “alt-right,” with the clear implication that Christian is part of that characterization. In fact, Jonette is a liberal, and displays those credentials in her authorship of a CD titled “A Liberal’s Case for Reducing Immigration.”

The writer’s comments are so far off the mark as to be almost laughable, if they weren’t so pernicious. The thrust of Christian’s view is that we must reduce the population increase that comes from migration – a sensible position, in my opinion.

Bob Casimiro

Bridgton

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