Letters

With respect for the opinion editor, I felt compelled to respond to the hyperbole expressed in the October 3 editorial “It’s Immigration, Too.”

To begin, I agree that there is no more important issue in this national election than how the elected government deals with our immigration crisis. I don’t agree that our 1st Congressional District is more greatly affected than the rest of the state and country. The relevant issue is the cost to our town, state and federal governments of an estimated 20 million uninvited people.

That figure is as good as any, since Homeland Security has no clue how many “got-aways” there have been. The costs to transport, feed, house, educate and medically respond for each government level is unsustainable.

Fact: FEMA is running out of money. It is so broke that disaster relief for American citizens needing rescue from floods in West Virginia and North Carolina is grossly inadequate for many who are wondering if help is coming. Other programs meant for Americans (think: veterans) are de-prioritized so our uninvited guests can have the services we provide them, absent knowledge of how big an obligation we have taken on.

With this backdrop, the priority for many Americans is to want this problem finally addressed. It’s like whipping up a bowl of eggs without knowing who to serve them to. The clumsy server spills them on the floor, and there is no choice but to clean up the mess before it rots. Homeland Security is the waiter, and the Biden-Harris administration the clueless kitchen management. The cleanup is a monumental disaster, but the bill is still due for the taxpayer.

When Donald Trump makes draconian comments about the nature of this problem and the danger it represents on many levels, it intentionally amplifies the national concern felt about a situation no one asked for but has been thrust upon Americans in spite of their repeated requests for an answer from Biden-Harris for four years.

To now rail against the anger from the Trump campaign and characterize it as a fascist response when no responsibility has been taken by Biden-Harris or Homeland Security is a deliberate attempt to spin the issue and its origin. America is fed up.

Making Representative Nick LaLota’s guilty of demanding solutions to this self-inflicted Democrat mess while giving candidate John Avlon a free pass for his party’s ownership of it is unfair. Avlon should own our immigration fiasco just like every Democrat who has stood silently by in support of a senile president and the vacuous vice president who created it.

If there are hard times and deportation ahead for the uninvited, Democrats have only themselves to blame.

Ed Surgan

Westhampton