Reason to fear decisions out of Washington

I am a retired lawyer in Northwest Arkansas. I was born in Long Beach, Calif., during World War II, when my Arkansas “born and bred” parents, along with millions of others, had gone to the West Coast to work in the defense industry to help win the war. We were and are all American citizens, so I am confident my family will be able to “live out our days” in the U.S.

Any scenario negating that conclusion would, of course, be hyperbole. But it is so only because citizenship by reason of birth is in accord with a constitutional provision, and it would require an amendment of the Constitution to change it.

Something happened the other day, however, that hit me full in the face and gave me a stark fear of what that unsavory bunch in Washington, D.C., could easily do to many good people vis a vis citizenship — without any need to amend the Constitution.

Two people who I much admire are in the U.S. under “green cards.” They are immigrants working hard to become fluent in English and are on pace to take the citizenship exam. Each of them is fully employed, earns a good living, contributes significantly to the economy and has a child born here who is an American citizen. My friends — unless POTUS and our currently misguided Congress should lose their way — most likely will soon become American citizens. But, “believe me” (a common POTUS line!), based upon DJT’s actions since Jan. 20, some form of this insanity could still very well eventuate. One must remember that green cards are not open-ended; they have an expiry date, and there are times when good folks for any one of a hundred possible reasons do not initially “make it” by the dates set on their cards upon issuance.

One need only recognize that the term of a green card is simply set by statute, and it could be shortened by another statute at any moment. It would be irrational [and would] kick out of the U.S. a vast amount of technical and other types of talent that our economy desperately needs — but it would require only the stupid whim of those people in D.C.

And POTUS (no better than the next-to-mostdumb president the U.S. has ever had) and our current Congress do stupid things like this every day. Why? Because too many of them care nothing about normal people, i.e., anyone whose name is not in the Forbes 500. Something truly must be done, such as a Democratic sweep in the mid-terms, to stop these fools who care not one whit about anyone but themselves, their power, and their own rise to the economic pinnacle. Our international standing has never been lower, the rest of the nations on Earth have at no point since World War II been as concerned about the dayto-day stability of any one nation, nor the safety of the world as a whole — a problem continually exacerbated by insane or impolitic threats of POTUS. DON SWITZER Rogers