Cynthia Tucker wrote a personal attack on me in last week’s AJC.

You can read it here from a different newspaper.

My response letter was published yesterday, along with nine others from the ever shrinking number of AJC readers.

My letter below, with a link to the other nine, which are posted below.

Thanks to those who sent Comrade Tucker a piece of your mind.

She needs exactly that.

From her perch high atop Mount Mindless on the far, far left, Cynthia Tucker’s “invective-filled” personal attack on me is evidence of her obvious desperation and anguish resulting from the knowledge that American voices are being heard on the national illegal immigration disaster.

Illegals wave the flag of Mexico while screaming “Los Angeles is ours!” They carry signs demanding “Amnesty now!” and “This is our continent!” Nearly five years after Sept. 11, millions of people from all over the world continue to illegally cross our unsecured borders every year. English is an optional language in Georgia.

Unlike Tucker, most Americans regard these facts as bad things.

One can only imagine the sleepless nights Tucker must suffer knowing that we even have borders — or how she must secretly regard the brave Border Patrol agents who risk their lives to guard them.

I wear Tucker’s dishonest attack as a badge of honor.

Again.

D.A. KING, Marietta

Nine other letters published in the AJC yesterday:

Cultural change can’t be mandatory

Cynthia Tucker’s column is irrelevant to the issue of illegal immigration, and her inclusion of insults toward D.A. King is irrelevant to her column. What, pray tell, does the topic of cultural change have to do with the issue of illegal immigration? It is ludicrous to say that those who oppose illegal immigration and support enforcement of our immigration laws oppose cultural change.

Why should anyone embrace cultural change forced upon them by people who come here knowingly in violation of our immigration laws and take advantage of services paid for by those of us whose culture they are here to change? Next time I see an illegal immigrant, I suppose I should open up my wallet, hand him $50 and thank him for coming to the United States and changing my culture. After all, he’s really doing me a favor.

My wife is a legal immigrant from Mexico who is now a citizen of the United States. She resents the attitude that illegal immigrants somehow have a right to be in this country, or that they have a right to services such as health care and education paid for by others.

ROBERT COZINE, Decatur

Part of one recipe

Other than the Native Americans, every American came from immigrants. Whether our ancestors came over on the Mayflower, arrived here as an indentured servant, came to escape Nazi rule, came over on a slave ship, arrived in a tiny boat from Cuba, etc., we are all from immigrants.

People need to remember that America was built as a “melting pot.”

ROBIN K. WALDEN, Ellijay

Majority favors U.S. crackdown

Why is Cynthia Tucker so angry at D.A. King? Did he do something to personally offend her, or does she have a dislike for anyone who wants our borders secured?

I read a different poll than the one referenced by Tucker, a poll that’s more in line with King’s viewpoint. In a recent Zogby poll, 69 percent said the tougher House version of the immigration bill was a good or very good idea.

I believe it only fair that you publish King’s response to Tucker’s personal attack. Better yet, I would pay good money to see a live debate between them.

JILL SEYMOUR, Mableton

Europe faces similar problems

I agree with Cynthia Tucker’s plea for reason and decency in the debate about immigration, but reason is being overwhelmed by the magnitude of the volume of illegal immigration. It’s not just a problem for the United States. It’s all over Europe as well. The riots in France last winter give a glimpse of what can happen.

President Bush is trying to get help from his friend, the president of Mexico. That’s a waste of time. He’s asking for something that’s not in Mexico’s interest. The illegal migrants are providing a sizable contribution to the Mexican economy.

Language is a key part of the problem. Migrants put an extra burden on overwhelmed social services because they can’t speak English.

A common language is an essential part of the glue that holds this country together. It is an important advantage to Americans that English is the lingua franca of our times.

LARRY HYMO, Athens

Want to stay? Learn language

The rosy picture that Cynthia Tucker attempts to paint of illegal immigration in the story of her niece, Irene, is marred by one fact: Irene’s grandfather, a U.S. resident for 23 years, is “less than fluent” in English.

I have encountered numerous Hispanics living here for many years who learn little or no English. This failure to assimilate linguistically is unprecedented in our history, and attempts to minimize the problem are folly.

For example, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Tuesday that 85 percent of 911 calls in Gwinnett County needing translators are Hispanics. The language requirement the president and others are calling for is an absolute must.

WESLEY ROSS, Augusta

Newcomers not all created equal

I see that Cynthia Tucker’s journalistic prowess and command of the language far exceed that which her sister’s father-in-law possesses; but her entire article is based on two flawed premises.

> Segregation is comparable to resistance to illegal immigration: Upon examination of the Constitution, we have found that both racial segregation and illegitimate entry to this country are illegal.

> Mexican immigrants are no different than European immigrants: No, Ms. Tucker, the difference is that the vast majority of Europeans came here legally.

DAVID D. DALY, Annandale, Va.

Services stretched to breaking point

Why does the left have to play the race card on illegal immigration? If the people coming in overwhelming droves across the border were white Canadians rather that brown Mexicans, most of us would feel the same way.

There is a reason nations have immigration laws: so that it is done in moderation and fairly, where everyone gets in line and waits their turn. This protects legal citizens from the problems that have already occurred in the Southwest and California: hospitals being bankrupted, social services stretched to the limit with benefit fraud, and schools struggling to serve large numbers of illegal immigrants who can’t speak English.

RONALD HOFFMAN, Sandy Springs

Tucker fan flees

How dare Cynthia Tucker call D.A. King a racist!

Funny how I am Hispanic, and King and I are friends. King is a wonderful and good American.

I used to love to read Tucker’s columns, but now I hate them. Illegal aliens and their supporters carried the Mexican flag at their rallies, and only because Americans fumed did they switch to American flags.

Tucker’s anti-American views are disgusting.

PRISCILLA ESPINOZA, Nuevo, Calif.

King, others want their country back

I have been to several rallies where D.A. King has spoken, and he is no more racist than Cynthia Tucker.

Like King, there are 280 million other American citizens who are tired of having their voices ignored. We are tired of having protesters march in the streets, screaming in Spanish that they demand citizenship, and having the AJC sympathize with lawbreakers simply because they work hard.

MICHELLE BROCK, Lawrenceville