Immigration Mishmash

To the Editor:

In response to “Immigration Distinction” (FCR Oct. 24), the letter that sparked this kerfuffle pressed the distinction between the qualities of the immigrant/migrant and settler. Immigrants, that writer alleged, show up to benefit unfairly from the hard work of settlers. I sincerely hope your Slovak great-great-grandfather and his family came here to not take unfair advantage of the fruits produced by the settlers. I assume your ancestor came to the US after Texas was a state. Recently, I learned that the patriarch of a family came to La Grange in 1844 or 45 to make way for his large family. He was “naturalized” into the Republic of Texas, although he was a US citizen from Virginia. He, as were others, was called upon to fight Comanches. He was killed in 1846 at the time his family was moving to Fayette County. This migrant family of means contributed to the development of the area and Texas.

Now, two other matters. One is legality. No one disputes our nation’s right to protect its borders. My previous letter expressed regret that “lawful immigration” to America has led to the exploitation of workers and their families, what I called indenture, and the latest letter calls slavery. I oppose indenture or slavery. I don’t think humans should be punished or exploited for being poor and powerless. We have a mishmash of immigration laws and policies, which the Oct. 24 letter writer calls “a viable immigration policy.” Administrations differ about that policy. Efforts to refine it stall. Attempts have been made to both accommodate to the mess and change it. Powerful people in our country benefit too much from the mess. They don’t want to change it. Some of the benefit is exactly the exploitation the writer blames on “those who jump up and down over the matter.”

The matter, as the writer suggests, is the intellectual honesty to understand the full picture. One part of that picture currently addresses the status of Afghans who supported the NATO/US troops in the war to defeat the Taliban. This has been a relatively public matter, but we need to dig more deeply. For instance: “Yesterday (October 22, 2025), Church World Service joined with its fellow Covenant Members to condemn the Trump administration’s plans to destroy the USRAP (U.S. Refugee Admissions Program) and make it unrecognizable from its proud lifesaving history.” These groups and individual Afghans are suing the administration to not restrict our Afghan allies while at the same time allowing in, with blessing, white South Africans whose case for asylum is fragile at best: The reduced, preferential “admissions goal would abandon more than 100,000 refugees who were conditionally approved for resettlement at the start of this year.” See https:// cwsglobal.org/blog/dailystate- of-play-trumps-indefinite- refugee-ban-and-fundinghalt/.

I am not fool enough to believe the issue, as discussed locally, is a broad and complex one in the mind of some. It is often targeted at Central and South America. Immigration policy is about border control and systematic and humane policy of vetting applicants seeking admission to the US. Without doubt, immigrants are here “illegally.” But even that matter is mishmash. Church World Service suggests a moral dimension: “Today, as barrier after barrier is erected to deny those seeking refuge, safety and compassion, we are compelled to speak out – and make good on the spiritual call to love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action (1 John 3:18).”

A second theme is how do we get rid of those deemed unworthy by the current administration and others. One answer is costly, beefed up and morphed immigration control with ICE at its tip. During his 12-year administration, President Obama removed 3.1 million “illegals.” That success did not serve as a model but an incentive to remove more by any means possible. ICE and other agencies have been weaponized in ways that have become increasingly costly and unpopular because it is un-American. In answer to a question raised in the Oct. 24 FCR, “Were the storm troopers of Germany in the 1930s named after a rain storm or a snow storm or an ICE storm.” For one answer, read “The Coming of the Third Reich” by Richard J. Evans.

Bob Heath Carmine