To the Editor:

"All Americans, not only in the states' most heavily affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers.

This is why we need to move aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring and by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens.

In the budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace as recommended.

We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.”

Was this more of the Trump campaign promises, attempting to whip his supporters into a frenzy? No, these are not the campaign promises of President-elect Donald Trump. They are, instead, the words of President Bill Clinton in his 1995 State of the Union Address.

Was President Clinton vilified for his comments as Donald Trump has been? Not exactly – he actually received a standing ovation by every democrat and Republican in the gallery.

Why is it that a popular democrat president can get away with statements for which any Republican would be crucified? Why indeed, when this question is answered honestly, then perhaps we can begin to bridge the partisanship that divides our country.

Jeff Malek

Wadsworth