July 5, 2018 500 AM
Dear editor, I’m writing in response to Lance Jarratt’s letter to the editor from June 28, 2018. Mr. Jarratt asks if it is “not immoral and wrong for parents to involve their children in a criminal act?” I object to his use of “criminal act.” If the parent applies at a port of entry they are doing what the law requires. So why are their children being taken away? If they cross someplace else, fleeing incredible dangerous circumstances in their home countries, they commit a misdemeanor, which is in the category of non-violent lesser offenses. They do what all parents do or should do: they try to bring their children to safety. Would Mr. Jarratt like to see family separation applied to his friends or family who commit misdemeanors like trespassing or public intoxication? These parents and their children should not be met with “zero tolerance” which in these cases amounts to ZERO HUMANITY!
Bettina Landgrebe Marfa
Dear editor, Mr. Jarratt wants you to believe that immigrant children separated from their parents at the border is no different than a US citizen who perpetrates a crime and is similarly arrested and separated from the child. His analogy is askew. A more correct analogy would be if the US parent was arrested for a misdemeanor and the police immediately took the child and placed it somewhere unknown to either parent and then later, without judicial oversight, gave the child to foster care without any method for parents to retrieve the child. This is an unimaginative and cruel way to govern. Lazy, too.
Zena Zeller Fort Davis
Editor: For many years, a small but vocal number of folks have bombarded us with “the law is the law” or similar phrases. But it seems that only applies to undocumented immigrants. If they truly believed “the law is the law” then they would have no problem with abortion, for example, which the Supreme Court declared legal in 1973. Likewise, they would have no problem with the Mueller investigation, which was legally instituted by the assistant attorney general of the United States, no matter how many times certain people scream “witch hunt.” Somehow, I doubt “the law” has anything to do with those people’s attitudes about not only the two examples above, but many others as well. And there is a common word that describes those people. Hint: it starts with “hyp” and has nine letters.
Fred Gossien Terlingua
