Letters to the Editor: Immigration reform is hard, but we have to keep working at it

Immigration reform is hard, but we have to keep working at it

Immigration and our southern border have been prevalent in the news lately. The U.S. Senate just turned down a bipartisan proposal to give a president the power to close the border. And that power was demanded by Republicans.

The proposal was a compromise that gave each side, Republicans and Democrats, some of what they wanted. Enter Donald Trump. He told his party that this compromise should be turned down. Why? So that he could use immigration as an attack against the Democrats in the fall election. The sad part of this is not what Trump did. Chaos is his MO. He is interested in one thing: Donald Trump.

The sad part is that so many Republicans (not all) fell in line behind him and that killed the bill. It did not help that the U.S. House, controlled by Republicans, would not even take a look at the proposal before declaring it would be DOA. A little history for you: During the George W. Bush presidency the House presented a Bush-sponsored immigration reform bill to the Senate and the Senate turned it down. The Senate was controlled by Republicans.

Immigration reform is very difficult. It always has been going back to the 1800s. Neither side has clean hands on this issue, but it seems that one party is unwilling to do the hard work of governing.

John Springer

Onsted

Stabenow, Peters vote to enable genocide

Sens. Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow worked through Super Bowl weekend. Not to solve a domestic problem or to secure the border. They worked so they could pass a Senate bill to send Benjamin Netanyahu $17 billion in no-strings-attached taxpayer dollars.

This is in addition to the $3 billion Americans already send Israel annually.

Why is this a priority for our senators? A majority of Americans, including members of their own party, do not support the violence in Gaza. And Stabenow and Peters voted to reward Netanyahu for killing an estimated 27,000 civilians — mostly children.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that it’s plausible to label Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide. So, why are Stabenow and Peters using our tax dollars to aid a genocide?

Tommy Valdez

Formerly of Hudson

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Letters to the Editor: Immigration reform is hard, but we have to keep working at it