surrounds border ranch houses in Arizona (probably some of my own classmates from Univ. of Arizona), because of the enormous crowd of illegals coming across in the night. The coyotes leading them force many to carry drugs; the women are often raped. No wonder there is such passion in the testimony we heard, on both sides. When that earnest and furious crewcut young man hollered, "Who invited you!" it was too bad no one yelled back "President Reagan invited them!" I heard NO one raise the question of fining employers, or otherwise punishing them, it was all blame the lowest and most vulnerable man on the totem pole. I heard no one advocate sending the bill to the federal government for enforcing the regulation and incarcerating detainees until deportation.

As always with republicans, they created the problem, now seek to demagogue it, advocate punishment before using their brains, and have no idea of how to pay for any solution.

this problem was created by both parties in Washington not solely Republicans but that said I am wondering whether people will see it as a "mandate" regarding the current direction of the PWC government if the BOCS remains intact after election day and Stewart in particular??

I think this resident of Westmoreland county has hit the nail on the head and written a really good letter to the Free Lance Star on this fake issue to most Virginians this election year. 

Forget illegals, fix outhouses

The straw man lives on. This year, he is illegal immigration. What are we thinking?

Only two deputies patrol Westmoreland County at night, the school roof leaks, we have more outhouses per family than any other county in Virginia, and pot-holed and unpaved roads make driving difficult. All this is because of a lack of state funding. Property taxes eat us up.

These are the real problems that Albert Pollard and Richard Stuart could help solve, and they should talk about them. Yet we have been drawn into believing that illegal immigration (the straw man) is the important issue in the state Senate race.

The General Assembly doesn't care about illegal aliens. Too many employers in Virginia have to use them to stay in business. Nothing Richard Stuart or Albert Pollard promise to do will fix immigration as long as Bush leaves the borders open.

Perhaps the fingerprinting program suggested by Mr. Pollard will catch a few illegals, but Mr. Stuart doesn't want employers of illegal aliens to be bothered by having to actually determine if they are illegal.

The illegal immigrants aren't the problem; politicians are the problem. Show me a person who is not a politician and I will show you a person who does not hold office. They insult us by claiming not to be politicians. Knock it off.

The federal legislators have done next to nothing to ensure that the borders are secure nor are spending the time to analyze what exactly the real problems of illegal immigration present us. That the state and local politicians use this issue to get elected/re-elected saddens me greatly.  So now the PWC BOCS have scared the Latino community into probably moving, what are they and other candidates going to do about our REAL problems - transportation, education, healthcare for those who aren't covered?  The candidates have fooled us yet again!