Enough of the turmoil that is sweeping up too many good people and not leading to enough arrests of the worst of the worst. Protesters are crossing the lines, and Americans are being killed by their government. There is no longer right or wrong — only spiraling chaos. Basta.
The president, the secretary of Homeland Security, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement should conclude that a significantly different, less confrontational and certainly far less violence-oriented immigration enforcement policy should emerge from this national catastrophe. There should be a pause to devise an immigration enforcement program that is constitutionally bound yet laser-focused on the immigrants who commit serious or violent crimes.
Americans believe that most immigrants who are undocumented are hardworking, family-oriented residents abiding by our laws. I believe that. These law-abiding immigrants are not the problem we want addressed. We want the criminal immigrants targeted, found and dealt with. Find those who defraud us of our largess and funnel drugs to Americans too willing to use them.
Then, focus on naturalization — not expulsion of the law-abiding, hardworking immigrants. As a nation, we have grown up with immigrants and acquiesced to their illegal migration. We have created Spanish language prompts and forms for applying for licenses because so many residents speak Spanish as their primary language. We have tolerated a porous immigration system that must be plugged; millions of Spanish-speaking immigrants have been here for decades. We have often used their labor and even asked them to care for our children and grandchildren. We have accepted and trusted the law-abiding, hardworking immigrants knowing their status is undocumented.
Thirteen million is the most frequently used conservative number of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally. With due respect to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the government cannot deport even half that number — if she had acceptable levels of staff and resources and the time to identify, process and deport them. Instead, let’s own this issue — and fix it through tolerance and naturalization while keeping the borders tightly controlled and our sovereignty sacrosanct.
Let’s debate how best to pave those paths to citizenship, rather than each side justifying tactics that have only led to riotous civil unrest and the use of deadly force. Basta!
— Mayor Gary Grasso, Burr Ridge
Republicans’ response
I lay awake Saturday night trying to compose a letter to U.S. Sen. John Thune, the Republican Senate majority leader. In my musings, I ask him to look honestly at the damage being done to our cities and country by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. While I cannot support many of the policies of his party, I am under the impression that he is an honest man who in times of crisis can rise above partisanship. Perhaps if one of his standing spoke out against the actions of this militarized force, this bleak moment could be ended in which our own government with our tax money is terrorizing citizen and noncitizen alike.
I did not write that letter. Why stop with Thune? What about the leaders of the Republican Party in Illinois and Minnesota whose response thus far is to criticize Democratic government leaders for their angry responses to ICE and the Border Patrol? Of course these leaders are angry, as any responsible leader should be.
In Chicago, we saw the farce of Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, standing at the bow of a boat coming down the Chicago River and parading his armed, masked troops down Michigan Avenue on a warm Sunday afternoon. That was not border control or immigration enforcement. It was to terrorize our city for refusing its support for President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Unfortunately, Chicago was not alone as a target.
The goals of Trump, Bovino and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have been realized. They have wrought chaos, shootings and deaths, with citizens and noncitizens alike being while arrested and brutalized. And then they lie about what they have done.
So, yes, I plead with Thune and other Republican leaders to break the stranglehold of partisanship and condemn this behavior. It is their voices we need most at this moment. Such would mark them as true American patriots.
— Roger Flaherty, Chicago
‘Jackboots’ uncalled for
In the Tribune’s Sunday sports section, Paul Sullivan’s column (“Budding bromance and other hot topics”) includes a paragraph I feel is totally inappropriate for this section.
He writes in paragraph five: “While Trump’s jackboots instill fear in Minneapolis, Chicago and other American cities, and he embarrasses the country on the international stage, these four pretend leaders will be posing for photo-ops in the Oval Office and pretending all is right with the country.” This is his personal political view. It should have been in the opinion section of the paper, not in the sports section.
For him to equate federal police with the term “jackboots” is insulting to police and the military in the United States. The use of “jackboots” equates our military and police with the Nazis and the Soviet military.
American soldiers, and even the governor of Minnesota who served in the National Guard for over 20 years, are issued military boots that Sullivan calls “jackboots.”
As a veteran, I was issued the same boots, which I proudly wore.
— Alan Kagan, Skokie
Keep politics out of it
Paul Sullivan should confine his opinions to sports-related subjects. Lately, his columns have been increasingly political in nature. In Sunday’s column, Sullivan calls the commissioners of the major sports leagues who are meeting with President Donald Trump weaklings because they don’t bend to Sullivan’s misguided view of our president.
— Thomas Beck, Chicago
Decline the invitation
Thank you to Paul Sullivan for his honesty in calling out the commissioners of the major sports leagues who are meeting with President Donald Trump. There is still time for the commissioners to pull up a chair and watch the lawless and un-American behavior of Trump’s immigration agents in Minneapolis.
It’s time to be real patriots and decline the president’s invitation. Do it for the American citizens who were killed in Minneapolis and other cities that support sports in our great country. Show some courage.
— Tim Ryan, Downers Grove
Too little, too late
We saw the video of Alex Pretti’s shooting by federal agents on Saturday. A little more than two weeks earlier, we saw these incompetent, out-of-control agents shoot Renee Good to death. We heard Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House adviser Stephen Miller, among others, say that these U.S. citizens were “terrorists.” But we saw the agents shoot a disarmed man who was lying on the ground and an unarmed woman who was moving her vehicle away from them. How dare any U.S. official lie so blatantly?
At an emergency protest in South Elgin and St. Charles on Sunday, I saw the outrage and disgust on the faces of old and young alike. We have had it with ill-conceived policies, indefensible tactics, criminal acts, mind-boggling lies, and a refusal to investigate and prosecute.
What country is this? Some Republicans have spoken up since Pretti’s death, politely asking for a “reset” of President Donald Trump’s immigration operations in Minnesota. A few have made strong moral statements, such as Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Chris Mandel, who reportedly ended his GOP campaign and stated that he could no longer be a member of a party that would condone these atrocities.
But other Republicans are only worried about the political ramifications, about losing in the midterms this fall and in 2028. Now Trump is making noises about addressing the situation in Minneapolis and “cooperating” with leaders there. What’s motivating him (as if we didn’t know)?
We can see through Republicans’ too-little, too-late efforts, if there are any real efforts, to clean up this mess. We will remember what they perpetrated and ignored and then lied about.
And most importantly, we will vote.
— Joyce C. Smith, St. Charles
False conservatism
Here is the end of the myth that President Donald Trump and his administration are ideologically and politically conservative. Let us count the ways from the federal invasion and killings in Minneapolis.
Conservatives pledge their allegiance to a belief in states’ rights, local sovereignty, Second Amendment gun owner’s rights, sanctity of daily life, protection from external interference and safety for law-abiding citizens.
Trump, Homeland Security and the Department of Justice violate these pledges daily in Minnesota and throughout the United States. They cannot claim to be conservative or law-abiding.
— Harvey J. Graff, Chicago
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