FRIENDS or FOES?
Readers consider the value of immigrants to America’s culture and economy
Brilliant idea! Let’s have a day where we force illegal immigrants and their co-workers to have a forced one-day furlough without pay to show our support for their plight. Let’s make them give up 20 percent of their weekly pay, assuming they only work at most five days per week like their protesting supporters. Let’s tell them that we won’t penalize them for failing to show up for work! What’s next from these OMB’s (Omnipotent Moral Busybodies)? Burning big business to show their support for small business? Boycotting American-made products because they have foreign-made parts in them? With friends like this, I’d side with my enemies! LARRY SCHUSTER Albuquerque
Immigrants reinvigorate economy
Immigrants who make it to this country, especially illegally, are the smartest, bravest, strongest people other countries have to offer. Throughout our history immigrants have brought new ideas, new energy, new capabilities to reinvigorate our economy and our society when we have been in need.
Immigrants are a threat only to the present situation here, where a very few people control nearly all the nation’s wealth and resources while everyone else barely makes do – or not.
Immigrants are what we were years ago – willing to do what must be done to help build true democracy, government with freedom, liberty, justice and equality for all. Immigrants have the spirit, the endurance and the creativity we need right now.
Welcome and protect the new blood of the nation! With a little support from us doubtful and disillusioned citizens, they’ll re-balance and revitalize America.
Why else would the powers-that-be want so desperately to get rid of them? LYNN OLSON Deming
Mayor two-faced on immigrants
Albuquerque Mayor Berry revealed his hypocrisy at his press conference to announce the creation of the city department “Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.”
The office is intended to serve Albuquerque’s immigrant and refugees community by acting as a point of contact with other agencies that serve them.
Berry said the new city department will help immigrants and refugees without regard to their legal immigration status and that it will help allay the fears of people in Albuquerque’s immigrant and refugee community.
Berry said “There has always been rhetoric from the left and right regarding immigration … But I do not think it has ever been ramped up to the level we’ve seen most recently.” Sure it has, and it was done by none other than candidate Richard Berry.
Berry used the issue of “sanctuary city” in 2009 to get elected the first time with his supporters driving a vehicle around the city with a billboard mounted on it condemning then Mayor Martin Chávez making Albuquerque a “sanctuary city” for immigrants.
After being elected, Berry declared that Albuquerque was no longer a sanctuary city. In 2010, Berry ordered the implementation of a policy that screened every person who is arrested, no matter the offense, such as misdemeanor DWI, shoplifting, drug possession, to see if the person is in the country legally.
By Berry’s orders, U.S. Immigration and Customs agents (ICE) were allowed into city jail holding facilities to screen virtually all people arrested and brought in by APD and determine their immigration status.
In 2010, Berry said, “If convicted, they will serve their sentence and could be deported. I’m not looking at this as an immigration issue, but more as a public safety issue,” thereby endorsing deportation of people no matter the offense and no matter the guilt or innocence of people arrested and taken into custody by APD.
Albuquerque city councilors introduced a measure to reaffirm a 16-year-old resolution making Albuquerque an immigrant-friendly community. I wonder if Berry will have a press conference to sign it if it passes or to veto it? PETE DINELLI Albuquerque
Trump ban reasonable, necessary
Media accounts often portray President Trump’s actions as a Muslim ban or an immigration ban. It is, in fact, a temporary travel ban from seven countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sponsors of terrorism. Those protesting this action often cite the poem on the Statue of Liberty which says, in part: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” The poem is not talking about travelers, but about people what want to live in the United States. Note that it says yearning to breathe free. How do we know that is what they are yearning for? We could ask them — both immigrants and travelers. So, we set up a doorway where they can come and knock and say “May we come in.” A golden door. We ask: “Are you yearning to breathe free?” They will say yes, but they could be lying so we have to determine what their motivation is. They could be yearning to steal, to rape, to enslave, to destroy. Now, if they avoid the door and sneak across the border, we have no way to know what their motivation is. Trump has a right to call a temporary halt to travel from those seven countries if he, and he alone, deems it a national security issue. Section 212(f) of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Law states: “Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.” It should be clear that Trump’s temporary travel ban is perfectly reasonable, legal and constitutional. NOEL BREWER Alamogordo