LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Parents who are in the country illegally put kids at risk
In a May 11 guest column, “ICE cold immigration policies part families,” authors Charles and Betty Dotson make perfect sense. Most of us who have children would feel the same way about not wanting to be separated from family even if it means doing something illegally. And here is the part of that article that was not talked about. When people decide to come across our borders to seek asylum, they are doing so illegally and knowingly putting their family in jeopardy. Our country is full of illegal immigrants from all across the globe, and probably most are law-abiding citizens. But we know for a fact that there are many people over here who are not law-abiding citizens.
I applaud President Trump for taking border security serious, as we have far too many drugs that are being smuggled into our country that are destroying people’s lives. Just because illegal immigrants over here have families and children does not necessarily mean that they are good law-abiding citizens. Most people would not leave the doors to their own homes open for anybody to walk right into. If you want to be a citizen of the United States, then you need to do so legally, period.
Jeffrey Johnston, Olive Branch
A call to help the fatherless
The May 13 column “Mass shooting near Crosstown a call to action” is a perfect example of the first duty of a leader, which is to define reality. What a question you pose: What do we do about the traumatized young men who are terrorizing us and each other? We know that Memphis has this massive challenge, but let’s ponder this advantage: We are blessed with outstanding capacity when it comes to our business, political and spiritual leadership.
A leader or leaders need to step up and put together a blue-ribbon panel made up of members from the aforementioned three groups and address the No. 1 issue that continues at an unacceptable level to this very day: fatherlessness. Otherwise, the challenge has no end in sight.
Burns Landess, Memphis