Letters Caregivers of New Jersey stands ready to lend a hand The baby boomer generation is coming of age. In 2006, the leading edge of the nation’s 78 million baby boomers will begin to turn 60. This is a generation of people, many of whom serve as caregivers to an aging or elderly parent, spouse or child who is chronically ill or has a disability or mental health issue. Many work full time, and the demands eventually take their toll. Most, at some point, will experience “burnout.” Many often don’t know where to turn for support or relief. In New Jersey there are more than 832,000 caregivers who provide an average of 891 hours of care each year. Clearly, there is a large number of our population in dire need of assistance whether it’s information, support, advocacy or education. The newly formed Caregivers of New Jersey can help. The organization was established to streamline and centralize information on a number of issues and resources related to care-giving. We are pleased to collaborate with other Family Resource Network affiliates, including Autism Family Services of New Jersey, Epilepsy Foundation of New Jersey, and Family Support Center of New Jersey, on such an important issue. Caregivers of New Jersey offers both caregivers and health care professionals a variety of free services through its Web site, www.njcaregivers.org. The site contains referrals, links to resources, even chat rooms for support and input. For more information call (800) FSC-NJ10 (372-6510). Jacqui Moskowitz executive director Family Support Center of New Jersey Manasquan Keyport can learn a lesson from South Amboy Your recent articles on the Aeromarine project in Keyport have interested me. The issue facing the residents of Keyport is at first glance a simple one: how many residents are enough in a limited area? But this issue goes further because of the very nature of Keyport. It’s an older, well-established town, with mostly a working- and middle-class population where people grow up there, marry someone from town, and raise their families there. In many ways, Keyport is very similar to a town only seven miles away, South Amboy. Keyport can learn a lot from South Amboy. They too had a large open space down near the water. It had been debated for years on what to do with it. There were many interesting and innovative ideas. Well, all of the various ideas were thrown away and the result is a glut of very densely populated condos, townhouses and some single-family houses. The development is called Lighthouse Bay. The cheapest new dwellings cost much more than the average home in South Amboy at the time the development started. What has this new development given the longtime, generations-old residents of South Amboy? Higher taxes increased traffic, pollution from all of the extra cars, and something they never bargained for: a drastic change in the makeup of the very nature of the town. The newer residents do not consider themselves as part of South Amboy. They say they live in Lighthouse Bay. The old-time residents of South Amboy do not know the new people. Many have never had a single conversation with anyone from the new development. A Newark daily newspaper had an article documenting this about two years ago. Nothing has changed. The residents of Keyport have a lot to figure out. The decisions they make will determine the very fabric of their small town for the next few generations. Do they want to have a huge influx of new residents? From what I have observed in South Amboy, this has not worked out very well, and in many ways it has been detrimental to the longtime residents. Adding hundreds of townhouses, two family houses, and condos will bring in perhaps thousands of new residents and cars. Will Keyport still be a small town or another tightly congested suburban town, a victim of shortsightedness? The residents of Keyport need to look seven miles north to get some insight. And then they need to take a very active and vocal role in this decision-making process. Peter McIntyre Matawan Stance ignores strain of illegal immigration into U.S. In a recent letter, the Executive Director of the New Jersey Immigration Policy Network Partha Banerjee decried the passage of the much-needed Border Protection, Anti-terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. Banerjee’s stance — borne of sincere emotion — fails to recognize the enormous drain on the country illegal immigration has wrought, and the omnipresent danger of having individuals flowing across the borders unchecked. The facts simply do not support Banerjee’s statements. Banerjee’s assertion that Representatives Tom Tancredo and Jim Sensenbrenner are “anti-immigrant” is simply not true. They are against illegal immigration, not immigration per se, and are courageous enough to try and remedy the problem before it is too late. Both men recognize the threat to the fiscal, environmental and physical well-being of the country that illegal immigration poses. For example, the common belief that illegal immigration is good for the economy is challenged on several fronts. First, many of the jobs filled by illegal immigrants are in cash industries where little or no taxes are paid. Also, an estimated $16.6 billion was sent back to Mexico in 2004 alone — dollars that will help Mexico’s economy, not America’s. In that same year, illegal immigration cost the state of Texas a whopping $4.65 billion. This number is based on the cost for health care, incarceration, and education for the state’s estimated 1.5 million illegal immigrants. Government studies also show virtually all illegal immigrants take advantage of at least one or more government programs, which adds to the burden of spiraling federal and state spending. Hospitals and schools are overwhelmed in areas with significant illegal immigration populations, resulting in a breakdown in services for American citizens. Also, while the majority of the illegal immigrants are honest, hardworking people in search of a better life, there is a percentage with less than honorable intentions. Recent statistics from California show a disproportionate 30 percent of the inmates in Los Angeles County jails are illegal immigrants. The cost for incarceration and providing legal representation for these inmates is placed squarely on the backs of the already overtaxed California taxpayer. Finally, in these days of fanatical terrorism, the United States simply cannot afford to have individuals entering the country without intense scrutiny. On Sept. 11, 2001, we were attacked by foreign nationals who exploited the country’s lax immigration policy and overstayed visas only to slaughter more than 3,000 of our innocent fellow citizens. The legislation sponsored by Representatives Tancredo and Sensenbrenner does not prohibit immigration; it just mandates that people come here legally, through an orderly process that ensures fairness to both the country and those desiring to come here for a better life. We owe it to every taxpayer and citizen of the United States that the immigrants of the future are here for the same reason that every immigrant group who came before them — to become a part of the greatest country in the history of the world, and all the opportunities that come with it. Gerard P. Scharfenberger Middletown