LETTER TO ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

"Chicanos" burn American Flag on Wilshire Blvd. in front of the Veteran's Cemetery on the Fourth of July.

Get story straight on flag skirmish in L.A.

Orange County Register - July 7, 2000

The Register's treatment of the skirmish over immigration at the L.A. Federal Building on the Fourth of July ["Foes scuffle at L.A. immigration rally," News, July 5] attempts to be scrupulously neutral. It characterizes Voice of Citizens Together, the organizer of the rally, as "an organization against lenient immigration laws." In fact, it is an organization against illegal immigration as well as our government's shameful failure to enforce existing laws.

A few other points the story fails to make clear: First, the Voice of Citizens Together rally had secured the proper permits from the L.A. Sheriffs Department. I doubt that the counterdemonstrators -- who flew Mexican flags and red flags while burning, spitting on, stomping on and simulating urinating on an American flag -- had secured any permits for their group. Another American flag was hung upside down and spray-painted with a circle "F."

Second, the "minor skirmish" the story mentions didn't just happen spontaneously; it occurred when the counterdemonstrators decided to charge across Wilshire Boulevard to attack the original demonstrators.

Name Withheld

Los Alamitos