Stop grandstanding; focus on solutions

The political gamesmanship over the housing of undocumented children while their parents seek entry into the United States is disgusting. Politicians purportedly feel compelled to travel to Texas claiming they have to see for themselves (i.e. can’t miss a photo op at taxpayer expense).

Well, they get their photos and their soundbites, yet not one of them (red or blue) has offered up any viable solution.

I question whether they truly care about the welfare of those children. These opportunists do not seem to be at all alarmed by the incidences of reckless endangerment of these children by the transporting parents before they even reach the U.S.

Why do they not clamor that we treat these parents the same way we would treat our own citizens if they endangered their children? If an impoverished U.S. citizen took his children on a “ride-along” to help him steal food so they all would not starve, he would be charged with reckless endangerment of a child, regardless of how desperate he may have been. Further, we would not house his endangered children with him during the disposition of his case.

Yet with undocumented immigrants, our politicians cry “government-inflicted child abuse.” Some outrageously (and frankly, unforgivably) liken the situation to Hitler’s camps.

Polarizing rhetoric and political grandstanding will not solve this crisis. To our politicians, I say, do the job you were hired to do and fix this situation — now. KATHY METZGER, WEST PALM BEACH