Readers Write: Immigration enforcement, Target’s fortunes, fraud detection

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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I was astounded that the Department of Homeland Security claimed the raid at Bro-Tex on Nov. 18 was “worksite enforcement” to “protect public safety” and help victims of labor trafficking. I’ve spent the last decade at the Advocates for Human Rights combating labor trafficking, including co-authoring one of the first protocols nationally for state and local law enforcement on responding to labor trafficking cases. If this administration is serious about helping victims, there are far more effective steps it can take:

All these measures once existed and worked. What is not on this list? Raiding workplaces and indiscriminately detaining workers. That’s a threat traffickers use to keep their victims afraid and trapped. Making those threats real doesn’t “rescue victims,” it reinforces their fear — exactly what traffickers want.

Madeline Lohman, Minneapolis

The writer is advocacy and outreach director for the Advocates for Human Rights.

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For everyone who says, “Do it legally,” please understand what that really means. The process to become a U.S. citizen is long, expensive and complicated, and even when immigrants follow every rule, they can still be torn from their families and deported.

Recently, immigrants with green cards, people on the verge of citizenship, have had scheduled interviews canceled, only to face surprise home visits by federal agents. Others have gone to court to resolve their cases legally, only to be scooped up by ICE and deported. These are not criminals. These are parents, workers and neighbors trying to do everything by the book.

We must open our eyes to the atrocities happening to good people who are simply trying to comply with the law. Enforcing immigration laws does not require cruelty. There is a way to uphold the law with care and humanity, without being vicious.

I urge everyone to contact your legislators and demand an end to these practices. America can be secure and still be compassionate. Let’s stand up for fairness and dignity.

Paul Niebeling, Minneapolis

Could the Minneapolis Lake Street and St. Paul University Avenue stores close as a result of the boycott based on one big shot’s poor judgment? Could Target’s headquarters be pushed out of downtown Minneapolis or, if it is weakened enough, could it be taken over by a conglomerate like Walmart?

We should never forget that Target rebuilt its Lake Street store, which serves a non-wealthy community, after it was ransacked in 2020. It kept the University Avenue store open even though it almost suffered the same fate back then. Name another big-box store that would make a commitment like that to underserved communities.

While it’s OK to feel smug about the head guy’s departure, it’s not all right to ignore the plight of good people who lost their careers, health insurance and benefits even if the boycott is only partially responsible for their terminations. It’s also not all right to take actions that could result in the eventual closure of inner-city stores. Drop the boycott and prevent more layoffs; you successfully made your point.

Wes Skoglund, Minneapolis

The writer is a former state senator and state representative.

Kudos to the writer who wrote that sales at Target aren’t declining because of dirty aisles (“Um, it’s not about messy aisles, guys,” Readers Write, Nov. 22). Like so many others, he and I are boycotting Target because of corporate decisions that are anti-gay and anti-diversity. But he failed to mention another reason for not patronizing Target: its donation of $1 million to the Trump inauguration. That rosy sum could have bought lots of food for those whose SNAP benefits were cut by our current administration.

Richard Masur, Minneapolis

Thank you, Brandi Bennett, for highlighting our seemingly fraud-enabling state government and proposing a way to report fraud and corruption when detected (“This was Fraud Awareness and Prevention Week. Could you tell?” Strib Voices, Nov. 21). Per the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners — of which I am a retired member — tips are the No. 1 way that fraud perpetrators are caught.

Tips account for 43% of detections. That’s equal to the next six combined, including internal audits (14%) and external audits (3%). Who sends these tips? 52% are employees, 21% are customers and 15% are anonymous. My source is the ACFE’s “Occupational Fraud 2024: A Report To The Nations.”

What’s better than rooting out fraud? Avoiding it in the first place. But how? The foremost control that entities change after a fraud is to implement or update management reviews (76% of victim organizations do this). This seems to be the crux of Minnesota’s problems: no apparent management reviews.

Minimum and demonstrable qualifications for program participation are another must. Does your organization have the capabilities to prepare and deliver thousands of meals daily? Show us your history of success in housing matters. Do you have your own metrics and anti-fraud processes?

Fly-by-night operations are easy to spot and should not be allowed to handle taxpayer dollars.

The Housing Stabilization Program was expected to shell out $2.6 million and wound up sending over $100 million; adequate program design would have stopped all funding and raised red flags when it neared $2.6 million. Feeding Our Future management review could have compared school enrollments against meals purportedly delivered. Exceeding cost or operational metrics, had they been established, would have prevented waste, abuse or fraud.

“Trust but verify” is good advice and relies on robust program design, implementation and ongoing reviews to prevent abuse or detect it before it gets out of control. Minnesotans can’t afford not to invest in these upgrades for existing and new programs.

Daniel Patton, Minneapolis

The article about David FitzSimmons and his travel expenses concerned me (“Staffer’s spending among highest,” Nov. 23). As someone who has spent a great deal of time investigating fraud and public corruption, the claims the article made seemed both unnecessary and unfair. Other than stating the fact that this chief of staff has high travel expenses, the article says nothing. There is no allegation that any of the expenses were improper or that his travel is not justified. Yet, the tone of the article is that FitzSimmons has done something wrong.

If any of our public servants misuse funds, I generally trust this paper to tell us about it. But this article does not say that. Absent some evidence of wrongdoing, I don’t see the purpose of publishing the article. Unless there is a lot more to this, I am sorry that FitzSimmons had to read a story about himself in our paper, a story that makes it seem as though he did something wrong, when there is no evidence that he did. He, and all of us, deserve better from our paper.

Andy Luger, Minneapolis