I read with dismay the New York Times article reprinted in the Star Tribune, "Tighter rules for poorer migrants" (front page, Aug. 13). Nowhere in this article appears the fact that existing immigration law already contains a rule pertaining to the "public charge" grounds for not giving permanent legal residence to noncitizens in the United States. If you read this article at face value, you might assume that these criteria are new, when in fact versions of the rule have been in place for more than a century. A more thoroughly researched article might have outlined the differences between existing law and newly proposed changes to that law instead of leaving the impression that public benefits have been freely given to all immigrants in the past, but thanks to "new rules," this is going to stop.
If we are to be an informed electorate, we must understand these nuances and debate the relevant facts. Our democratic society is plagued by complex challenges requiring complex solutions. If we are to understand these challenges and effectively debate them, we must have the correct information. We require our journalists to dig deep and provide relevant facts despite popularly tweeted slogans.
Patricia A. Levy, Shorewood
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On my father's side, my ancestors came from Ireland to America as a result of the potato famine. They were starving. Had they stayed in Ireland they would have died; I would not be here writing this. On the other side, my mother's grandfather came here from Moravia. He ran away from home as a young teenage boy to claim the promise of America. He had to lie about his age to board the ship that sailed for the promise of a future where he could be more than a poverty-stricken day-laborer. He became a baker opening his own bakery in Chicago. His granddaughter, my mother, became one of our country's first women to become a lawyer. She graduated first in her class, outdistancing her classmates who were all male.
My Irish ancestors became everything from railroad engineers to lawyers to actresses to business executives and financiers. My Irish father spent three years of his young life defending this country in the Pacific during World War II, then went on to raise a family of six and run his own business, employing over 100 other people, some of them immigrants.
Not one of them arrived with money or the promise of making it. None would have been able to afford the passage back to their homelands, either. I wonder, would the Trump administration have put them in cages at the border? Would it have separated them from their children or parents? Sent my Irish family back to their homeland to starve, or condemned my great-grandfather to a life of unrequited labor in his tiny village?
These are the people today who the Trump administration is rejecting. "Give me your tired, your poor" — now what is it acting head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli said? — as long as they can prove they are financially stable and won't be a burden to the taxpayers?
All I can say is, "Wow!"
Marjorie Rackliffe, Hopkins
DHS FUNDS
Tribes don't own state's mistakes
For the state of Minnesota to demand repayment of $25.3 million from the Leech Lake band of Ojibwe and the White Earth Nation is wrong ("State tells bands to pay back $25.3M," Aug. 14). The tribes had repeatedly consulted with the Department of Human Services about billing for addiction treatment services and repeatedly were given misleading and incorrect information. The mistake is clearly the responsibility of DHS and, by extension, the state.