In support of immigrants and free speech

Editor:

I’m responding to Jon Matuszczak’s letter from last week. He started by complaining about his neighbors exercising First Amendment rights to free speech by demonstrating against the illegal excesses of the Trump Administration. Apparently he’s happy to claim free speech rights for himself as evidenced by his frequent letters to this paper, but is uncomfortable with others having the same rights. His contention that these demonstrators are acting on the orders of “international handlers” is a fantasy only entertained on the Conspiracy Theories ‘R’ Us websites that he favors.

The majority of his letter, though, was a screed against undocumented immigrants, support for the cruel and violent push to deport migrants and the ridiculous assertion that people who resist such actions have a political agenda to gain political power by allowing mass immigration. 

First, let’s start with a rare point that Jon and I agree on. Our country should maintain the integrity of our borders. 

That must be accompanied by a functional and well thought out immigration system, which we don’t currently have. Efforts to meaningfully reform the immigration system have largely been blocked by conservatives who prefer the outrage they can muster in their base from a dysfunctional system.

Regarding the point about agendas to grab political power, let’s remember that undocumented immigrants have no political power. Contrary to Trump’s lies they don’t vote. Instead, Trump is the one that uses immigrants to grab political power. His racist and inaccurate portrayal of all immigrants as criminals and parasites is a clear appeal to fire the emotions of the hateful tendencies he’s encouraged in his base. The reality is that immigrants pay more in income taxes each year than they receive in benefits. In fact, many immigrants pay more taxes than our tax dodging president, who paid no taxes in 10 of the 15 years before 2019.

It’s true that a few immigrants commit serious crimes and no one objects to arresting, convicting and deporting those bad apples. But the actual data shows that immigrants commit fewer crimes per capita than United States citizens. Yet Trump wants you to believe that all of them are serious criminals and a grave threat to the country. 

Trump and his gang claim they are going after the worst of the worst. But the facts are that there aren’t near as many serious criminals as his lies portray. So to meet the showy quotas he has set for deportation his masked, heavily armed and poorly trained ICE agents are mostly sweeping up honest, hardworking immigrants who are just trying to make a better life for their families. In the process they are violating a variety of laws. They are also brutalizing, arresting and even killing U.S. citizens because they are in such a rush to meet their quotas that they can’t afford to take the time to do the job right. I understand states, towns and local law enforcement not wanting to willingly participate in this illegal and inhumane circus.

 
Arden Anderson

Gunnison