Ockham's razor, "the simplest explanation tends to be the correct one," seems to be ignored by Christine Hayes' Aug. 23 letter regarding illegal immigration.

Anyone driving through Pasco can look out his or her windows and see new homes in the $100,000 to $300,000 price range popping up all over the place!

Concurrent with the new homes, Pasco added about 700 new students to its rolls. Pasco tried to pass a needed school bond, but now resorts to portables. A mitigation fee is a mundane result.

True, it's not a cool conspiracy theory. It's simple, tedious, math: new homes equal new students.

Ms. Hayes states that "some" of the new students are undocumented immigrants. This assumes facts not in evidence and we all know the old saying about assuming things, don't we? A much simpler explanation would be that a family with children bought one of the dozens of new homes.

Ms. Hayes' fear is not a new one. When my grandfather immigrated here from Ireland, nativists swore "unwashed" Irish, Italians, Poles, etc. would ruin the schools, too. Did we?

When the next school construction bond comes up, the citizens of Tri-Cities should see it as simply a logical consequence of tangible, fortunate, growth, vote yes and ignore unsubstantiated theories.

Matthew Ruane, Richland