Letter: Stirred up about deportation and detention

The penal law says aiding and abetting a criminal is a crime, yet House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered advice to immigrants in the country illegally who want to avoid arrest and deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers [“Mass deportation raids moving forward,” News, July 12].

Pelosi and other politicians take an oath to uphold the law. The oath doesn’t state they can pick and choose which law to uphold. Pelosi and some other Democrats don’t admit that immigrants scheduled for deportation went through the court system and lost. They were given deportation orders and decided to disobey and stay.

This has nothing to do with the thousands of others already living in our communities.

Bernie Bienwald,

  Centerport

President Donald Trump tweeted that the interned immigrants were in “far better and far safer” conditions than where they came from. If that’s true — looking at the crowded, unsanitary conditions in the detention facilities — why would anyone doubt why they would have left the (presumably) worse state where they came from to seek asylum here? (Incidentally, seeking asylum is legal.)

Why isn’t there a huge outcry against the policies that have let this happen (including the forced separation of families)? Why don’t we hear evangelicals, who proclaim to believe in Jesus’ words, speak up against Trump’s policies? Why are Republicans meekly quiet? Are they willingly disavowing their traditional party’s standards to blindly accept the outrageous autocratic actions of this president?

Stop drinking the Kool-Aid, folks; get a spine and let’s get this country back to be what the world once admired.

Clare Worthing,

  Wantagh

Sharon Golden, co-administrator of the group Together We Will-Long Island, which is protesting the conditions at U.S. migrant detention centers, said the Trump administration has forgotten that this country was built by immigrants [“Advocates spread word about rights to those at risk on LI,” News, July 12]. However, she forgot to mention one word: legal!

She deplores the border detention conditions, but many of these migrants traveled in filthy conditions, lacking bedding and bathroom facilities. The border detention centers provide bathrooms and some bedding at no cost.

Golden wants to emphasize the rights of these immigrants, but under our laws, they do not share the rights of U.S. citizens. They have rights only as humanity has dictated. The Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other U.S. law enforcement agencies are applying the law of the land to detain these immigrants.

Roy Willis,

  Massapequa

I firmly believe that Rep. Tom Suozzi is failing the voters in his district and should be challenged [“Zimmerman confronts Suozzi,” News column, July 14]. Thanks to Robert Zimmerman for doing so on the immigration bill that Suozzi supported. I instead supported the House bill that would have prevented money from being diverted from humanitarian aid.

Years ago, as a Democratic committeeman in Great Neck, I thought Zimmerman was too much a part of what is loosely called “the establishment”; he had worked for Rep. Lester Wolff, who would not fully oppose the Vietnam War. Now, all these years later, I find myself inclined to side with Zimmerman.

Suozzi is whistling past the graveyard if he thinks that his Problem Solvers Caucus, made up of Republicans and Democrats, has any influence on the shut-down-democracy behavior of the Donald Trump-Mitch McConnell-Kevin McCarthy triumvirate.

Robert D. Adams,

  Great Neck

The Trump administration deliberately and publicly separated families at the border to discourage the diaspora from the Central American northern triangle. These people flee gang warfare, persecution, hunger and threats of death in their homelands. They come to our border asking for security and asylum. This has created a backlog of thousands of children, while separated from their parents, living in cages and denied basic needs.

Media reports say children separated from their parents were found to be cared for by other children, wearing the same diapers for days, and having no toothbrushes or a changes of clothes. They were kept in camps in terrible heat. At least seven children have died in U.S. custody or after being detained by U.S. authorities at the border.

If a first responder comes upon a child so neglected, child protective services can remove the child and, in some cases, the parent can be arrested. Who will protect these children from those who should be providing a safe environment?

These asylum-seekers need proper legal representation, not higher fences. It is apparent there is no compassion, no heart, in this administration. It will take decades to restore the faith and trust in the American promise of a better life.

James P. Kelly,

  Huntington