Would someone please tell Paul Belden that “the sort of immigrant that made this nation what it is” was not a molester of his own children (“Domestic Deportees,” 11/29)? A 13-year-old is “sexually touched” by her father. She is rightfully distressed about it and complains. The result is that the old goat is sent back to Central America.

This is a bad thing? I don’t think so.

Child molestation is always cruel, it’s always wrong, it’s always evil. When a child is molested by her own father, the cruelty is multiplied. If this poor girl feels despondent about her father’s deportation, she should get counseling—it is, sadly, not unusual for such victims to feel as if they were actually the cause of the crimes against themselves. But she doesn’t need that pathetic man for anything. Not his financial support and certainly not his moral or emotional support.

Yes, the family is hurting now. Victims of sexual crimes are hurt by those crimes. They are hurt emotionally and, sometimes (as in this case), economically as well. But keeping the perpetrator in the country as head of the family he victimized could only be more hurtful to them and, especially, to the daughter he victimized.

Maybe INS was not acting out of concern for the family. Maybe it regarded the man as just another deportee. But the result of its actions was the removal of a child’s molester from that child’s home. I don’t see how this can be construed as a bad thing.

Columbia, Md.

via the Internet