Dear Editor:

I am a sixth grader and there are some things that the government is doing that bother me. The main thing that is bothering me is that the Port of Entry into the United States at San Ysidro, California has manually operated gates instead of gates that can be opened with a pulley or opened electrically.

Someone I know has seriously injured her neck while manually pulling open one of the big, heavy gates that go across one of the lanes at the Port of Entry. She has been off of work a long time. Worse than that, she is in a lot of pain.

The problem is that there are a lot of different agencies at the Port of Entry, like the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), Customs, Border Patrol, and the GSA (General Services Administration). All these agencies are so busy spending money on computer systems, they are forgetting about some of the simple things like the gates. Then, they end up paying money to someone who is hurt and can’t work.

The solution is simple. All the agencies could band together and worry about simple things, like opening and closing a gate, which they have to do every day. They could do that instead of worrying about computer systems.

Sincerely,

Gabrielle Lopez