Nothing to fear if you
enter country legally
This is a response to Martina A. Caretta’s letter to the editor (DP-Wednesday). Many Americans are tired of illegal immigrants expecting special treatment.
Should officials conducting Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids wait until a more convenient time to round up undocumented immigrants instead of during normal working hours?
Really, would she have been in favor of paying overtime for federal marshals? It’s unfair to expect special treatment of these criminals.
If they had entered the country legally, they wouldn’t have to worry about ICE raids; being separated from their children; and the deplorable living conditions in the already overcrowded retention centers.
President Trump is blamed when the real blame belongs to the undocumented immigrant who makes the decision to commit the crime. She labeled the Trump administration as “racist” with a “xenophobic immigration policy.”
The Trump administration is upholding the law. President Obama could have amended the immigration policy but he didn’t. He should have focused on retention center improvements and better treatment instead of ruining our health care, but he didn’t. Mass media didn’t make issues about the immigration policy while Obama was president because a Democrat was sitting in the White House.
President Trump has done all he can do defending his every move because of media attacks on his administration. I do not have sympathy for criminals. Our government is the first line of defense in protecting us from terrorists and criminals. Thank God our officials are finally taking that responsibility seriously.
Immigrants that enter the country legally are given housing, food stamps, free medical treatment, classes to learn English and $2,400/month to live on until they can find work. If you entered the country legally, you have nothing to fear but if you didn’t, you should be fearful and rightly so.
Brenda Bonnett
Arthurdale
Capito can stop funding
for immigration policies
The Trump administration is diverting money away from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other disaster relief agencies in order to fund detention centers for the indefinite incarceration of migrant children and adults.
Sen. Shelley Moore-Capito is chair of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, which has the power to divest from spending on these punitive (and deeply damaging) enforcement measures and instead invest this money in true humanitarian assistance. This is our tax money, and it should not go toward funding the cruel treatment of other people.
The administration has made no secret of its desire to make an example of these refugees, migrants, families and children. They have demonized the entire population of migrants and asylum seekers, and attempted to argue that housing children in overcrowded, ill-equipped and unhygienic facilities constitutes acceptable, legal treatment.
The courts have thankfully disagreed. But the truth is that no degree of incarceration is healthy, and the use of indefinite detainment of children as a means of setting an example is immoral. The individuals and families who are being detained by this administration will suffer. The children who are being indefinitely detained by this administration will suffer. And this suffering is the explicit intention of this administration.
There is a humanitarian crisis. The measures that the Trump administration is taking will not help to resolve it. The inhumane, unsanitary conditions to which he is subjecting these families, and the emotional and psychological harm that he is inflicting on these children will not resolve it.
The answer is not further spending on privately owned detention centers. Our tax dollars should not fund these cruel measures.
All of our senators and representatives should exercise their conscience and oppose this administration’s measures. And Capito must use her position and power to do so.
Andrew Sylvester
Morgantown
