Protesters rally during a demonstration in response to a series of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids June 12 in Los Angeles, Calif.
The immigration morass
Illegal immigration is, well, illegal. Our laws should be enforced. Where inadequate, Congress should pass new ones as it tried to in 2024 before Trump’s intervention. Refugees/asylum seekers are a different category. They wait for adjudication and do periodic check-ins. Anyone suspected of a crime should be afforded due process and properly penalized if found guilty. If we allow people of any status to be detained or deported without due process, none of us is protected from rogue law enforcement.
In 2022, undocumented immigrants paid almost $100 billion in taxes while often working at some of the toughest jobs for less than minimum wage. Want to stop them? Crack down on employers. Prosecute CEOs and guilty farming, food processing, and construction corporations. Of course, these are the exact industries where Trump said he is not going to enforce the law. Why? Because prices would increase, voters would turn against their GOP Representatives, and he would lose a chunk of his base.
Hollace Lyon
SaddleBrooke
Why no MS-13 arrests?
Why isn’t ICE rolling up the gangs from Mexico, Central, and South America? Trump campaigned on capturing brutal MS-13 immigrants, engaging in major criminal activities, drug trafficking, violent crime and murder.
I have served as a police commissioner. Police departments have organized gang squads and narcotics units with embedded undercover officers conducting complex criminal investigations of these dangerous illegal immigrants. Local cops know names and addresses.
Yet, people in plain clothes with guns, their faces covered, no badges, name tags, or sworn law enforcement IDs, are seizing people on the streets of America. Arrests occur at courthouses, Home Depot stores, schools, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, and cabbage patches.
Nearly 65% of those taken into custody are working non-violent migrants with no arrests, easy targets for ICE, low-hanging fruit, ordered arrested by Steven Miller, Trump’s “Minister of Deportation,” for headlines.
So, why isn’t ICE arresting major gang criminals? Hint: It’s dangerous! Trump wants easy, immediate seizure headlines from working, undocumented labor at Home Depot.
Jerry Wilkerson
SaddleBrooke
Water vs. growth
Thanks again to Tony Davis for his informative and alarming report on the reality of our water crisis. I have to wonder if our politicians and decision-makers are paying attention. As Edward Abbey said, “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell”. You can’t drink data, and you can’t drink copper.
Stanley Steik
Midtown
Suggested medical malpractice reform
David Walker includes a request for medical malpractice tort reform in his faulty Medicaid reform analysis.
Why limit the liability of doctors who hurt patients by providing negligent care? The poor care results in increased medical bills for those they harm and reform would place the burden of the injuries on the victim rather than the negligent provider.
Arizona has already enacted requirements making it so expensive to pursue a claim that only those patients with serious long-term disabilities and future medical expenses can find a competent lawyer who can afford to front the litigation costs and put in the 100s of hours needed to even prepare a case for trial. The doctors and insurers refuse to negotiate a settlement, even in obvious cases of negligence, until they are facing a jury. As an attorney who has been asked by clients to help them find a lawyer, I have repeatedly had to tell them that their case is too small. Most malpractice gets a free pass already as a result.
Kenneth Graham
West side
We tend to emulate our leaders
Have you noticed that In all various fields of human activity, we tend to emulate the people whom we follow.
In the case of politics in the U.S., many people emulate DJT. His “no respect” for any opponent at any level, person, party or nation, has greatly influenced how we collectively respond to things like: Woke, DEI, immigrants, environmental concerns/issues, etc. DJT, by his no respect approach makes him by definition a barbarian.
He has now joined our sole ally in the Middle East in their barbaric (no respect) approach to the Palestinians, and now Iran. The consequences for his actions are yet to be known, but by our silence in Congress and personally, we are condoning and confirming our guilt as co-barbarians.
Vincent Allen
Northwest side
No vote on Grijalva
Adelita Grijalva seeks to inherit the Congressional seat held by her father. I oppose her election as she, like her father, is a career politician. They claim to have lived a life of service but I feel that it was really a life of sucking at the public teat and avoiding any real work. Both began their careers with the TUSD school board. moved up to the Pima County board of supervisors and finally Raul’s election to Congress, a position he would not relinquish until his death. Once you start feeding at the DC trough, it’s hard to let it go. Now with her father’s seat vacant and 23 years of taxpayer-paid paychecks under her belt, Adelita believes it her turn at the big time and based on her family name, is the right choice for Congress and if elected will most likely remain there until death do us part. Politics should not be a family business, and seats in Congress should not be an inheritance.
Bill Clifford
Midtown
Ciscomani’s new TV ad
Juan Ciscomani has discontinued his TV ad in which he promised to protect seniors’ benefits. His vote in favor of Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” made this lie so glaringly obvious that this ad became Exhibit A for his duplicity.
Ciscomani’s new TV ad stresses that he “is fighting alongside Trump to deliver real results for Arizona.” Several hundred thousand Arizonans of all ages losing their health insurance and/or SNAP benefits as Trump’s bill would require is certainly “a real result,” just not a good one. The ad also claims that this bill “cements the largest tax cut in history,” but doesn’t mention that these cuts would go overwhelmingly to those who don’t need them at the expense of those who do.
This new ad is simply a rhetorical sleight of hand in which Ciscomani tries to recast his continuing betrayal of his constituents as support for a supposedly embattled president and his agenda. I call BS.
Eric Weiss
Foothills
Watch the other hand
A grifter will distract you with one hand and pick your pocket with the other. Examples of the former: Gulf of Mexico, Canada as the 51st state, and Greenland. But, the other hand? Now the Administration has bombed an adversary in order to distract us from ... what?
Let’s follow the money.
The proposed Big Ugly Bill passed in the House by ONE vote. Now it’s in the Senate.
It would strip 8.5 million people of healthcare, gut clean energy legislation, privatize public lands, and (worst of all) give the Administration $350,000,000,000.00 (billion dollars) to “militarize the border,” not necessary. This money will be used to police citizens who dissent.
Call the Senate switchboard at (202) 224-3121 (24/7). They will direct you to your Senator’s office, then share with those in other states. This bill has something to hurt everyone, except rich people.
Gaye Adams
Midtown
Beware of wolves
I admire 25-year-old Deja Foxx and believe there is a place for her in the Democratic Party. However, congressional candidate Adelita Grijalva has proven herself to be a skilled leader for longer than Foxx has been alive, serving with distinction on both the TUSD Board and the Pima County Board of Supervisors. If Foxx and Grijalva were to split the vote among women, the person who would benefit most from Deja’s candidacy is Dan Hernandez. Hernandez paints himself as a progressive, but this portrayal is false; he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing, much like “Democratic” Senator Kyrsten Sinema was. It speaks volumes that Gabrielle Giffords, the person he interned for, and whose life he claims to have saved, does not endorse him. Instead, she supports the proven progressive Democrat, Adelita Grijalva. My vote is for Grijalva.
Louis Hollingsworth
West side
Twirling moral compasses
Charles Borla’s June 24 description of seven Congressional hopefuls’ reactions to the Iran bombing was revealing. Grijalva was succinct and straightforward, focusing on crises here. Rivas spoke Trumpese. Harris was confusing, possibly confused: He doesn’t have the same information as Trump. No one has the same information as Trump, since he makes it up as he goes along, outright dismissing Director of National Intelligence Gabbard’s input.
Most interesting was Butierez’s response: gung ho for the bombing until he learned his daughter might be deployed.
Such is the MAGA attitude: Me First trumps the greater good.
Sherry Machen
Green Valley
Solar games
While it is easy to support solar energy, should companies misrepresent the conditions to try and win market share? There are U.S. manufacturers that are running a commercial trying to get you to contact Congress and change the laws about China’s production of solar panels. While not supporting China in the production of solar panels, what I don’t support is using a grant from the taxpayer to underwrite the U.S. production costs. The U.S. has the capability to produce the solar panels at a cost that can be sold at a profit and compete with China’s production, but what is critical is that U.S. manufacturing should not be supported in the production costs. From the beginning, there have been grants for anyone installing solar panels, distorting the actual cost of the installation, all supported by the taxpayer. This brings us back to the original question as to whether solar panels are actually a worthwhile alternative. Funny, NY state has shifted back to nuclear energy as a viable alternative.
Loran Hancock
Northwest side
We need great and free transit
Tucson has the worthy goal of accommodating the development of 35,000 housing units by the year 2033. This could mean the addition of tens of thousands of vehicles to our current traffic situation. But continuously widening and adding roadways does not make sense. It’s expensive, ugly, environmentally unsound, and only encourages more traffic. Endless hot lanes of asphalt and moonscape parking lots do not make for a desirable city. Now is the time to promote and nurture alternatives. Keep mass transit free, build new developments along transit routes, and use the money that would be spent on new roads to create a world-class transit system and tree-lined bike paths and sidewalks.
As we all know, cars are crazy expensive — gas, insurance, registration, maintenance, parking, tires, on top of the purchase price. We can save a lot by living without car ownership, or at least two-car ownership, but it’s up to the city to make that possible.
Linda Dobbyn
Midtown
A non-Barbarian response
McConnell, in his opinion piece recently, responded to a debate challenge with his Barbarian viewpoint. It consisted of a litany of issues that offended him, all ascribed to the Democrats. It reminded me of Trump’s response when asked about the economy and he responded that the bad points were all Biden’s and the good parts were all his. Both seem to misunderstand the nature of a debate. There was a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear program that was working before Trump unilaterally withdrew and then bombed Iran for not complying. There was a bipartisan proposal in Congress to the immigration problem before the last election that Trump torpedoed as it removed his primary campaign issue. If the Republican positions are so strong, why does Trump have to lie on a daily basis and about such trivial issues? And why the abject meanness of many actions? If the Republican positions are so strong, can they not survive with asking for both honesty and empathy?
Tim Helentjaris
Northwest side
Homeless arrested
Cost of keeping someone in the county jail for one year, $50,983. Median cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment, $10,620 per year. Did anyone think about that before it was decided to put all the homeless in jail? Or is the intent to just arrest them, take all their belongings and then let them all loose again? Or maybe the police will walk around giving out tickets and expecting the people to show up in court? Or maybe they will be fined for being homeless and all just pay a fine? Get real.
Bette Bunker Richards
Midtown
Follow these steps to easily submit a letter to the editor or guest opinion to the Arizona Daily Star.
